Subject: "850 or 940 - which is the better car?"
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 13:06:44 -0400
From: pabloantoine
To: ozbrick

I have a '95 850 sw, na, manual,77k and an '86 740 GLE sedan, auto, na,
122k.

Both cars are running great, but the rear traction on the 740 scares the
hell out of you on sleet or snow combined with slopes and curves. Yet
the 740 amazingly has one of the shortest turn radius in its category,
while the 850 seems a little smaller car, but has a wider turning
radius...

850 has by far more power and acceleration, while the 740/940 gives you
more noise and vibrations but less acceleration. Expect all rear drive
Volvos to challenge your skills in bad weather - they are not as big and
heavy as they should be in order to justify rear drive like the Lincolns
or Caprices, so they become nasty if they get a chance. The bright side
is that in all good weather they are so greatly dinamically balanced and
precisely responsive that they seem to always maintain the course you
have in mind, not an inch extra.

The 850 is by far a security improvement even from the design phase
-compared to the 740-940. Not as simple minded and tested as its
predecessor, will cause you some surprises, but it's another category of
car anyway. It's more powerful, has better acceleration and the same
perfectly predictable steering, coupled with the ABS and front traction
that will keep you away from trouble in bad weather and help you "crawl"
through soft snow like a cat -while a 740/940 will often get you moving
sideways!

My best way to express the difference is that to keep a 80mph average
for a couple hundred miles with the 740 is tiresome -because of the
noise at high speed, coupled with the need to think how to preserve all
the power through your transmission  (the engine-transmission chain
becomes lazy at high speed) when you don't have enough acceleration to
regain speed after reacting to different road conditions.

The 850 -even normally aspirated- has the extra power and the good
dynamics, coupled with a great sound isolation of the interior, that it
makes such cruise speed very comfortable (maybe dangerously
confortable). Brakes fast, reaccelerates quickly. (I'm not encouraging
speeders, I'm just giving you a "global" hint).

Also, don't forget that speed is not crucial, but reliability is. About
740 everybody said  "This car won't let you down". I didn't hear the
same about 940 or 850... The 940 improvements over 740 removed the
overall simplicity this car had and substituted robust parts with
redesigned, hi-tech ones. Still, the skills of  Volvo engineers made
these cars anthologic in their category - a marriage of good old rear
traction with a fast and rather lightweight body.

The 850 in exchange is a new well designed animal to begin with, greatly
designed and tested, but tainted by economic compromises Volvo started
to practice lately -and it's engineers are not as skilled to cope with
those.

Hope this helps.
Pabloantoine