I. Thanks for letting me join your community.

I own 2 Volvo's. One a (F)740GL and a (M)940se.

The 740 I am thinking of chopping the front off and turning the rear into a trailer as there is too much wrong with it to put it back on the road.

The 940se I have just bought off ebay. It has a slight leak from the radiator not really a major problem as it doesnt really cause any problems.

However it has now decided that it does not want to run. It started messing about as though it was only on 3 cylinders but when you put your foot down it was perfectly ok.

The next thing to happen was it ran like a real bag of **** lumpy & uneven. Then it stalled, and took ages to restart. Although running rough it would rev fairly well but as soon as it was put into drive it would lurch forward about 2 foot cut out and not restart.

I have replaced h Spark plugs & leads and the fuel filter. The car still refuses to start. Any ideas please?

Thanks Wayne

Wayne,

I could be many things but I experienced strangeness w/my 940 when it turns out after much trouble shooting, that the battery cables were corroded. I cut and replaced the battery terminals and put new connectors on. All of my strange symptoms went away. Mine would actually start to stutter/sputter and acted like it was not getting fuel, running at maybe 200 rpms and would stall out if I did not keep on the throttle, while stopped I had to keep in in nuetral and gas/rev it up until I could move along again. I changed out many things until I figured out I was not getting the proper voltage from the battery. After replacing the battery, the symptoms continued along with the low voltage on the battery. That is when I decided to check the battery cables. When I pulled them off, the looked fine but it turns out there was corrosion inside the cables causing enough resistence to affect the voltage. Once I took care of this, all has been fine since.

Good luck!

check the distibutor for any cracks etc and also this similar problem i had aswell as the battery being a valid solution, is the ignition amplifier. i dont know exactly where it is on the 940se but i can hazard a guess probably bbehind the airbox or next to the battery. think these are like us$10 from ipdusa ... i replaced mine and all the rough idle and staling problems went.

Matt

check the engine hasnt gone into limp home mode, mine used to run really rough when it did, it really needs a new oxygen sensor, but only drops into limp mode when its at tickover for a while.
I like the idea of a back end of a 740 as a trailer, I used to run a 340 with the back end of a second 340 as the trailer.
Grendel

Hi Thanks all for your suggestions, I will certainly take a look at the battery cables.

I have also checked and there is plenty of fuel getteng up to the injectors and there is spark at the plugs. I tried a dose of easy start and it still would not even fire never mind about run!

I was thinking that maybe the ECU is not telleing the injectors to open?
Does this soud like it may happen?

Where is the oxygen sensor please? Also my lambda sensor is not working but I'm sure this should not cause the engine not to run?

Thanks Wayne

Oxygen sensor / Lamda sensor = the same thing, this can cause the engine to go into limp home mode where it runs really rough and drinks the fuel.
Grendel

the ignition amplifier will still enable a spark, but intermittantly as i found out, i sparked out all of the plugs seperated from the engine (no plug in cylinder) and one or two were missing now and then whilst cranking, and no doubt whilst running also.

Matt.

ps - i spent about £800 trying to get this problem solved ... its annoying when it cost me £10 from a scrap yard and it worked fine there after