Volvo Diesel Experience
Folks:
I had 2 Volvo Diesels had put over 450,000 miles on them. I got my first one in 1980 and traded in the last one (an 84 wagon) in late 2002. The engines use some oil with usage increasing as the engine wears out. My 84 had about 300,000 miles on it when I traded it in. It became difficult to start in cold weather and used more oil because it started to have blow by. Some of this would get sucked back into the air intake during hard acceleration which made for a black smoke event. However, once it was warmed up it still ran OK and still got about 28 mpg.
Go to the Swedish Bricks website if you want to find out more as there are some gurus who rebuild these engines. Only once in 450,000 miles did either of these car strand me (it was the 1980 because of an improper repair). My 1980 averaged about 33 mpg for the 155,000+ miles I had it. The injection timing can be adjusted so that you can get better mileage but mid 30's is about the best to expect.
I used to get a lot of parts from Voluparts in Atlanta as they had a number of used Volvo diesels in their yard. The glow plugs and oil and fuel filters are the same as used for VWs and some Audi 5 cylinder diesels. You have to be careful that you get the right glow plugs as the 84 has the newer fast glow plugs. The air filter is the same used by the VW Vanagon from 1980 to 1985. Neither of my cars needed any fuel pump work except to replace the shut-off solenoid.
My 84 looked a bit like your picture, the valve cover gasket leaked a little but most oil would leak from the hose connection to the intake manifold. The biggest problem I was facing on my 84 was a timing belt and probably a water pump too and the maintenance cost for this can be more than the cost of the car ($400+).
Since the rest of the car was a Volvo 240, there were few problems, however, the wiring can be an issue if you don't watch it as the wire covering started to come off some wires in the engine compartment after about 12 years.
I have not heard of many of these engines going much beyond 300,000 miles without a rebuild and I know many that were rebuilt before 200,000 miles (but I know some folks didn't exactly do oil changes as often as they should have).
