Hi guys!
So I'm new here, shout out to Les for sending me here after he spotted my ad on Gumtree for trying to get rid of this beast.
About 2, 3 weeks ago, I bought a Volvo 850 from perhaps the sweetest lady I've ever met in my life, and although it made it home, the oil light came on basically as soon as I got into the driveway. Me being the stupid one forgot to check the oil before I left but it hadn't been shining at all on the way home. I, perhaps carelessly, drove the car to the nearest servo, not even 5 minute drive away.
I am used to my old car, an 89 Telstar, which will shine the oil light on for weeks before it actually runs out of oil, so I didn't think a quick shoot up to the servo with it on would cause too many issues.
Oh how wrong I was, about a kilometre short of the servo, the engine pumped out a pile of smoke, it was grey and had the worst burnt smell I've ever encountered in my life.
I checked the oil and the dipstick did not show a reading (must have been pretty low!)
We went to the servo (via other means of transport) and bought some oil and filled it, and no it didn't magically fix my engine.
I went back home and grabbed my Cross Country wagon and drove back and towed the 850 sedan home, as I didn't want to do any more damage to the motor.
Over the next few days I kind of gave up pushing the car around and just decided 'screw it' and started it anyway. The first few times it didn't start. It was really hard to get it to start, and then to stay running, and it poured out thick grey smoke and ran like a tractor, maybe worse.
BUT! The weirdest, most confusing part, is that the car seems to be slowly healing itself. These days it will start first time, every time, and it runs pretty much the same as it did before the incident. It pours out a cloud of white smoke. Actually, the smoke isn't there when you just start it, it takes a few minutes to come through as the car warms up. The smoke is more like steam, it is virtually pure white, has no burnt smell, but does have a slightly sweet smell to it. It gets very very thick as the engine warms up, to the point where I'm flooding all of the neighbours houses so I have to turn it back off. I would describe it as very close to head gasket smoke. But that doesn't really add up now does it? I don't recall my car overheating at any stage!
Basically, I have no idea what to do with the car. It is currently advertised on Gumtree as for parts. I have a rare 850 because everything on it (except the engine) actually works. Yes, thats right, even all the typical things like the odometer and ABS. The last owner has already fixed them all so it was actually a good find!
Im asking $600 for it as that is what it owes but realistically offer me anything more than like $350 and its yours.
Otherwise, any advice on what to do is much appreciated! Ill be doing a compression test in the following few days. Removing the spark plugs should be enlightening, as they should be covered in whatever vital fluid is getting into the cylinders that shouldn't be.
Les offered me a new motor/gearbox combo but I don't have the facilities to change it myself and any mechanic is going to charge way too much to do it, so it isn't really worth it.
Id love to buy an 850 with a working motor/gearbox, and everything else broken and just shift everything across and make one good 850 out of two bad ones, but haven't had much luck with that either.
I took a few photos of the beast, the smoke in these photos doesn't really happen anymore, its thicker, but whiter and doesn't smell like destroyed engine.
I also have a Volvo Cross Country wagon which sometimes gives me gremlins, I made a separate post about it!
Thanks!
-Jeremy
