Lagom Wagon - My 2000 Volvo V70 Estate Daily Driver

Lagom is a Swedish word roughly translating to: adequate, enough, sufficient. Or my favorite mincing: "The right amount is best." There's this weird aura about this car in that it's trying hard to be enough, at 145k miles with failing ABS module killling my speedometer intemittently, blown shocks, transmission fluid seeping out slowly because a previous owner didn't get the right gasket, a faulty "electronic throttle module" causing spastic idle and revving while off the throttle because the engine doesn't understand how to peg down to a reasonable speed. It just keeps on plugging along though, I keep the fluids topped off and take the right precautionary measures while driving to make sure it doesn't grenade. 

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So far the worst thing I've done is almost shift it into "R" at speed because I have also never owned an automatic. Amazingly, having been driving myself around for almost a decade I escaped PRNDL hell with a bunch of hot hatches and proper sports cars.


My rap sheet includes an NB Miata, two RSX Type-S's with one of each generation, a real DC5 Honda Integra Type-R, two E30's in 325is and M3 flavor, for a brief moment a 1993 Civic with no tach, and an S2000.

So, having owned only standard-shift sports cars with a decent reputation for my entire driving life how in the hell do I end up with a P80 chassis Volvo known for transmission failures and general unreliability?

Try moving into your first house with just an S2000... Yeah, I didn't think so.

The good thing is I bought this wagon for a reasonable price from our GRM staffer and Forum Moderator Tom Suddard. Of course with the initial handshake and purchase I also caught a bad strain of some Swedish sickness.

You see, when I was growing up my best friend had a Saab 9-5 turbo. He wanted to get farther into cars so we did some basic bolt-on's and I taught him that even his FWD, Auto, ~3,500lb Scandinavian sedan could pull off a J-turn with some convincing. In retrospect, to my 16 year old mind it was simply a larger version of the '99 Miata I autocrossed regularly. Anyway, I loved cruising around in this weird sedan with a night panel mode and the radiant smell of crayons emanating from every interior part we touched. So I guess part of me wanted to love Swedish cars because they are a bit odd, and because I have only fond memories with that Saab growing up. Little did I remember in my flashback that his 9-5 jumped timing while idingy gingerly through a parking lot with only 110k miles on the odo... Hmm.

None of the rather gracious optimism I had justified finding Swedish Fish in my glovebox and an IKEA umbrella stuffed in the back seat within the first week of having the car registered. Though then again I'm a weird guy. In my insanity, I thought buying the other two, horridly broken Volvo wagons Tom had parked around for "parts" was a good idea too. Or with enough Swedish meatballs and beer, maybe just one functional XC wagon, extra parts, and video of a poor shell being turned into a more-literal ingot of Swedish steel. 

Well, only one of these three runs and drives at the moment. So until I get wagon #2 on the workbench for assessment, let's focus on the problems at hand. The goal for now is to make this a fairly-reliable daily driver and then add some cool bits. Nearly everything I initially mentioned with this car can be fixed with parts I now have on hand with the blown up parts car purchased a few weeks later. My first lesson was that little bits of composite plastic, fiberglass, or whatever mystery material they used to make the radiator cowl will soon get embedded in your forearm and burn badly if you lean on it. Just wear gloves, long sleeved, and especially eyewear when taking these things apart or wrenching on them. How did I learn this so quickly?

After using the front subframe core support as a center jack point (which is the proper way according to the Volvo forum,) though the car was in park with parking brake firmly on, the jack "coughed," slipped, and plunged through the aging plastic cooling fan while still erect. I don't have a picture of this incident because of all the swearing I was doing in my new neighborhood. I have a feeling that most of my threads will involve broken plastic and swearing after making this initial post and my discoveries.

Here is the fan, broken and shattered like my reliable P80 Volvo dreams.

Amazingly, the erect jack didn't sever the transmission fluid line and simply shattered the plastic cooling fan shroud at the top while pushing it skyward with my blood pressure.

I ended up replacing the offending unit with a comparable one out of the parts car, with integrated high flow louvers (aka flappy plastic bits that will probably also wither in the wind) and throwing several cubic inches of crumbling plastic parts away in the process. I might keep the fan unit itself in case I need the motor in the future. For now, I'm happy to be back on the road without overheating in 3 miles.

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I set out to fix known problems this week and only ended up creating a bigger problem on top to solve, though I'm sure many of you can relate to this concept. Until next time!

Philosophical question: why is is an estate when it's a Volvo, but a wagon when it's a Chevy? 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Honestly I just used the phrase estate to instill a false sense of class for my Craigslist mechanic's special. Always made me think of fox hunting with bloodhounds riding in the back.  

I think though, since you drive your Chevy to the levy which is most certainly off of the gentleman's estate, the word wagon gets a general body shape across just fine. In any instance, it's a wagon. 

When it's a Buick, it becomes Estate Wagon, whatever that means

Did a thing and pulled this off the blown-up 99XC last night for the ETM (electronic throttle module) which, according to the internet, ALL fail at between 30,000 and 90,000 miles. Good job on those production choices Volvo! The introduction of a lovely Magnetic Spaghetti Italian-built component in the drive-by-wire throttle systems is at faulty for an idle hunt of epic proportions and a car that just won't sit still. You can't see it clearly in my image, hence why I will update with some clearer pictures later on.

If for some unnatural reason you are looking at early 2000's Volvo's, be prepared to do this job or else find a unit from the now-defunct company XeModeX which was reworked to better-than-Italian standards. You can find a place to buy them here.

Praying this one is in workable shape, and throwing it in to replace my very defective unit.

It's been a while since my last update, work and play don't mix well. Plus it's still just outside of the first month in my new house, trying to get settled in before the holidays roll around to share with family and friends.

Good news for the Volvo though! This weekend I plan to take him on a nice little road trip through central Florida for his first big mission outside of daily driving duties, I'll post about that later on.

So, here's that ETM we talked about before.

(It's the crud-covered piece of metal hanging off of the intake manifold like a defective Italian leech.)

It was dirty, wires exposed since the sheath disintegrated around them, but still for the net price of $0.00 I had to give it a shot.

I separated the pieces and tried it on my car. It ran! The idle even went down below 1200RPM, but the result was not as anticipated. The car ran extremely rough, it felt down a cylinder or maybe even two. I think the actuator was fluttering or completely closed, forcing the choked engine to bypass the throttle body itself and use peripheral air to stay alive. I took the car up the block to get an idea, just in case it was an intermittent problem. Anything more than 2000RPM and it would run okay, but still felt wounded. I decided to go back to high idle but safe and order some used parts from eBay nice-guy Kranz. A very very clean ETM off of a similar model year S60 was had for $85, far less than the original $1300 shop bill people would pay to get these things fixed in the early 2000's and $450 XeMODeX wants for a new fixed unit.

A bit more than the local scrap yard would have cost, but I've saved the time and energy, plus this thing was tested to be fully functional.

After a week, the parts were installed. Car runs like a top now!

Next on my agenda is actually to test out the other parts car and see if it will need more than a turbo to get running.

This car will be getting a transmission pan gasket which looks like its also going to be a pain in my pan but I'll also leave that for another day. For now, I'll enjoy the small successes and keep burning fuel on a regular basis.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Philosophical question: why is is an estate when it's a Volvo, but a wagon when it's a Chevy? 

My '88 Chevrolet was labeled as an Caprice Estate. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Philosophical question: why is is an estate when it's a Volvo, but a wagon when it's a Chevy? 

because volvo is classier than chevy obviously lol