Hello again,
I thought well I'm moaning about the remains of my motor in the 850, I may as well make a note about my Cross Country turbo-wagon.
I bought this beast from Pickles Auctions in January. It was VIV repairable write off, with no structural damage, no popped airbags, simple a dent in the fender, a scratch in the rear door, smashed headlight and smashed front bumper. All up about $1750 in repairs. Got the whole car in the end for around $5500, including full reg. It had 104500 on it when I got it and at the time was worth about 10K so I did well! After it was all fixed up, my baby ended up looking pretty much like any other V70:
The car wasn't perfect though (obviously, it had been crashed), but not only that, although the previous owner serviced it religiously at Volvo dealers and never missed a service, the thing still kind of drove like crap. The wheel bearing was shot and it made this really loud thrumming noise whenever you drove over 50kph. We fixed that and a few other things, but most of my problems are with the transmission, which is actually kind of common with this model year (its a 2002, built like December 2001 I think?).
Anyway, it always used to clunk and bump around. Whenever you coast and then accelerate it sort of bumps in and out. It never goes into drive too quickly. Stick in drive, go grab a coffee, come back and it may have chosen to shake itself into drive. Literally when it finally does decide to go into drive its not comfortable. Reverse is the same sometimes but far less often.
Most of the gears seem to work so driving it isn't actually that bad (especially when its cold!). Once its heated up though, third gear is my problem child. When coasting, the car will drop into neutral (like it idles even when Im still doing 60 or whatever, and slowing down, say your about to turn into a street), and when you accelerate it seems to forget to re-engage third gear, so it will just rev and not move.
The first time it happened I kind of freaked out and floored it, the car hit the red line and when it decided to go into third gear, it was a jolt and a half to say the least.
These events progressively got worse and were happening far too frequently for my liking. One night the car decided to just stop completely and none of the gears worked and I had to abandon it for three hours whilst I waited for the tranny to cool down.
I took the car for a longggg drive to Anglesea, where I went off-roading and broke the radiator (the mechanic tells me it was likely on its last legs anyway, to define off-roading I literally mean a slightly rutted dirt road). When he replaced the radiator he had to drain some tranny fluid, and it was BLACK. Probably the worst condition tranny fluid Ive ever seen, definitely the original as the dealers don't change it due to Volvos "life long transmission fluid" bullshit.
So I took the car to my mechanic (Swedish Wreckers in Keilor East) and had the fluid flushed out and replaced with new fluid and filters. The car drove like an absolute pig on the way home from that. It actually made it so much worse. I didn't drive the car for like 4 days because I hated it.
Eventually mum talked me into driving it in the hopes it would "settle in". And it did, after about a weeks worth of driving it progressively got smoother, and up until recently didn't play up at all.
Recently some of the above symptoms have returned but they are no where near as bad, or as frequent, so the fluid change definitely did help.
Are there any other easy, cheap things I should look at? The mechanic tells me it needs a new valve body but this is $1600 which is kind of a lot. And plus Im not even convinced thats the problem.
The car works better in the manual mode when I do it myself rather than let it decide. It also likes to be hammered. If I gun it everywhere the transmission is smooth as silk and shifts really fast, in either drive or manual mode. Slow and steady however, we have problems.
Some people tell me constant fluid changes solved their issues. Others tell me that they added an external cooler and that helped (this worked on my old car). Others tell me it was their ETM all along. Others tell me they didn't replace the valve body but just its cover thing and that helped. Like I can't get a straight answer and I don't want to throw $1600 out willy nilly hoping for it to get fixed when it might not!
Other issues?
-If you run it below ΒΌ of a tank it won't start sometimes, mechanic tells me this is a fuel sender unit fault which is kind of common.
-Im not convinced the AWD actually works? Plant your foot on dirt, wet, anything other than bitumen (and hell even bitumen if you try hard enough) and the front wheels will pull a nice burnout, and then the traction control cuts in and Im just not sure if those rear wheels are even trying. Any way to test? Can I disconnect the traction control (there seems to be no switch) and test it that way?
-Power windows, the drivers one slipped out of its mechanism, fixed that. The control is playing up. It used to work fine then bam one day it decided that the AUTO function for the passenger side should no longer work. It also decided that if you roll the driver window from all the bottom to the top in one hit (using auto function) it will cut out half way through and wind it back down. The same controller also decided that when locking the doors, the switch will lock, but it no longer unlocks and I have to use the remote. Same as on the passenger side (I assume the passenger switch uses the drivers as its "master" so if one plays up then so does the other?)
-I have annoying rattle somewhere. Sounds like its buried deep inside the pits of gloom that we call a dashboard so that will be a fun job to replace.
Random questions:
-This car is my long term car, but I think i scored myself the one directly above the base model, although this one is kitted with a sunroof and the geartronic transmission, I don't have heated leather seats, or the (apparently useless?) GPS system, or the car telephone or any of that cool stuff.
-I mainly want heated leather seats, can I retrofit these? Like I can see where the button is supposed to go on the dash (in the climate control bit), but I assume there is not just a wire for it sitting behind is there? That would be too easy?
-Same goes for the power fold mirrors. Can I retrofit these? Again I have a blank switch for them, but Im going to assume no wiring?
-Im assuming if I want the really cool stuff like sat nav and the car phone (these usually go hand in hand anyway right?), I would have to change the wiring loom within the dash?
-And Ill take a guess that because its a VIDA system car, everything is coded, which means I have to buy parts that suit my VIN number, yes? And if I buy anything that this car didn't originally have, will it work or will my car spit the dummy?
-I was thinking if I manage to find like, a stat-write off T5 or some range-topper like that for real cheap thats roughly made around the same time, I should be sweet to transfer the parts? Like really, how fussy is it?
Sorry for the kinda long post, this car annoys me but also really excites me haha, they should hopefully get shorter from here on in!
Thanks!
Glad to join a group of other Volvo enthusiasts, I never used to like these things but since buying one, I am hooked!
Jeremy
