As I understand, the base 850 models did not come with climate control, where you set the dial to a temperature and leave it. They came with cool to warm dials instead. Can a climate control unit be easily retrofitted to a base 850 from a Turbo or GLT model?
Also, because the 850 did not include a CD player unit, is it simple to replace it with a Turbo or later model radio with CD? I'm assuming it would be plug and play, but can't tell.
Thanks.
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'86 245 DL Volvo Blue/ Blue Vinyl M46 -- sold

Yes its true you can return your radio to the volvo dealer provided its am/fm tape, to get a am/fm tape and cd player and they the volvo dealer will actually make money from the core.
Regarding electronic climate control (ecc) to manual climate control (mcc), its up to you, if you have ecc and the lights flash the dealer can pull diagnostic trouble codes from the ecc, whereas a mcc panel will not flash and a dealer cannot pull codes. Otherwise you set it, you adjust it, its all you!

having the base 850 w/o ACC myself, I must say I much prefer it to the ACC on my other car, a 9-3 Viggen. Seems as though ACC is always blowing at an undesireably high fan level. Have noticed this too on Volvo loaners. I love my manual climate control. Easy to dial in the perfect setting, IMO

claude
'94 855M 260k miles

I swap the radios between our 95 850 and 98 S70 and it can be done
in about 90 seconds -- plug and play. As mentioned, the bezels
are black for the 850 and gray for the S70. (The S70 has a CD player
so it gets swapped into the 850 for long road trips.)

One of our Volvos has the temperature setting climate control and
the other does not. I would not miss the temperature setting
at all since I often have to change the fan speed manually to
keep the car comfortable. In fact, I never use the automatic fan
speed setting and the temperature knob is a twist knob just like
the one in the manual controls. I wouldn't consider it worth the
effort to retrofit.

The radios can be plug-and-played easily. Just make sure you get the dark gray for the 850, and not the light gray of the S70, etc.

The auto climate control is a different story. In addition to the different control panel, there are multipl damper control motors, temperature sensors, and electronics. It would be difficult to change it out. Maybe someone has done it, though.

Gerald C