1989 Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon from North America - Comments

I consider the following to be non-routine maintainance...

When I first bought the car, it needed the following parts replaced:

-Front and rear windshield wiper motors.

Since I've owned the car, the following parts have been replaced:

-Alternator.

-Several engine and transmission gaskets and seals.

-Water pump.

-Transmission bushings.

-A/C compressor clutch.

This car is my first Volvo and is an extremely good value. I consider it to be trusty and reliable. It needs repairs once in awhile, but they are always easy repairs that can be done in a day. Because I take my car to an independent Volvo mechanic whom I trust, repair costs have actually been very inexpensive, especially for a non-American luxury car.

It is extremely safe, reliable, powerful with the turbo, comfy, and inexpensive to own.

My only complaints about the car are that it is no fuel miser! Granted, for a mid-size, luxury family wagon of the 1980's, gas mileage is nothing to frown upon, but it is nothing to smile about either. To make it even worse, the engine requires premium fuel because it is a turbo. Another major complaint is the drive-ability of the automatic transmission. It holds each gear too long and shifts quite harshly, unless you are accelerating at a snails pace. Not what I'd expect from such an otherwise refind car. The A/C is failure prone and hard to keep cold in warm weather. My last complain concerns the power of the car. This is a pretty quick wagon, but it takes off from a stand-still very slowly until the turbo spools up after a couple of seconds. This makes pulling out into busy roadways a little scary. I think for how much torque this car produces, it should have snappier power delivery with less turbo-lag.

The pros of this car far outweigh the cons to me. It's a quality vehicle overall with thought obviously put into it's design. These 740 turbos commonly last 300,000 miles! I hope mine lasts that long!

The car is supposed to shift late, Volvo marketed it as a sports car. Shifting late = better acceleration. It feels like a manual almost.

I agree the shift is quite harsh though, I have an 88 740T wagon...

I just purchased a 1990 Volvo turbo with 188000 miles on it. It appears the reason for the shift lag is due to the turbo boost pressure (stock 7psi) The motor loses it when the turbo reaches it maximum out put which causes it rap out beyond the power-band before shifting. Increase the boost pressure (at your own risk)...

If you want to pull out from a stop sign a little quicker, do the 2 foot driving mode, give it a little gas while holding the brake just before pulling out and mash the throttle. Careful, mine will smoke the tires when doing this!!!

http://www.mcbrooms.com/volvo/fast700.htm.

I have to say that two foot driving is NOT a good idea. It wears down the transmission very fast. If you want more acceleration from a Volvo you just need to buy a new model. Anything before '94 is going to be very slow.

I'd venture it's better to emphasize the endurance of a late 80's Volvo, rather than speed off the line.

I've got an 89 turbo wagon with almost 200K and so many dings in it that a few months ago I opted to use it as a building material hauler, rather than buy a cheap pick-up truck. I was building a house. Well, after four months of undue abuse, high-speed/heavy-load driving, compressed shocks and a groaning transmission, guess what happened? Nothing. I can't seem to break the thing. Do I have to keep this tank around forever? Too ugly now to sell, but still runs perfectly. What do the Swedes know that GM, and even Toyota, don't? Makes one wonder about the planned- obsolescence/conspiracy theories.

I was the original writer of this review and thought I'd add an update. I sold the car in May of '05. No repairs were needed to the car from the time of writing the original review at 186k miles until I sold it with 225k miles. Unfortunately, at that mileage, the head gasket had blown and cracked the head. That's a huge problem.

I figured out a little driving trick to greatly relieve the delayed hard shifts of the transmission. Because the shifts are so harsh and noticeable, you begin to learn the shift pattern of the car. A second or two before you expect the car to upshift, let off the gas pedal just enough so that it causes the upshift, then reapply the normal amount of gas pedal to continue accelerating as normal. It's a quick, easy trick that smooths out the rough shifts a great deal and actually seems to increase the acceleration rate, since the transmission isn't holding each gear excessively long on it's own accord anymore.

Thanks for the info about late shifting on this model. I was getting a little worried about mine as I just recently discovered the trick of letting up on the gas a bit to cause the transmission to shift. It works great, but the fact that it did seemed to indicate to me that something was wrong with the transmission. So I googled "late shift 89 volvo" and it brought me here. Good to find out that this is probably normal for this car. Thanks.

The delayed shifting and rapid engagement is common to high performance cars to prevent wearing out the linings in the transmission. This B230F engine however is not much of an engine to treat as a high performance. Backing off on the power as the engine over revs is also a trick that is well known to people that have a transmission with a modulator that needs to be replaced or adjusted. I thought I would replace my wife's modulator since the car has over 276K miles and is suffering from the same fate but I can't find a modulator even listed on the internet. Not sure where to go to make this adjustment to bump up that shift point. If this is the way Volvo designed it, without any adjustment, then they should have their head examined.

Maybe they do need their heads examined, but at least they designed a decent gearbox in the first place! Many Lexus RX300 drivers would be so jealous of your car's 276k achievement so far on one gearbox! Well done Volvo!