460 driveshaft

[Hippo1]

Just bought a 460 se for work and found the whole car shaking on acceleration, got it home and it looked like the nearside drive shaft was bent, next morning removed the shaft and found the tri joint, (don't know what you call it) on the gearbox end had one of the bearing journals missing, no wonder it shook the car, my question is can this tri joint be bought separately because, it comes off the splines or will i have to get a complete drive shaft, local parts shops can't get it although they will supply the outer cv joint, any help will be most appreciated.

[B20F]

Here's a drawing from the partsmanual. You mean# 62? That's Volvopart# 3410419 called spider in the partsbook. Guess that will be only available through the dealer.

[Rufe]

We used to sell these spiders from time to time, though haven't sold one for a while now. They are still available from any dealer, including myself

SPIDER:
P/n: 3410419
Retail Price: £84.60 inc vat
Our Price: £71.91 inc vat, plus postage
Postage: £2.80 Royal Mail 2nd Class recorded delivery
Availability: Can be posted out the same day if ordered by 10am, or next day if ordered by 4.30pm, by phoning us on 01792 790066.

Simon

[jlgrosvenor]

You could consider familiarising yourself with how to remove the driveshaft (complete with stub axel carrier and wheel bearing) from the instructions in the Haynes manual. Then, this item should be available from a good scrap yard, although you may well need to remove this yourself.

Not and easy job, and would require the following tools:
Ball joint splitter
19mm spanner and socket
17mm spanner and socket
Impact driver with VERY large cross-head driver attachment (to remove the front disc)
Large lump hammer
Probably and adjustable spanner/wrench
Spanners and sockets around the 13-15mm range to uncouple the anti-rollbar linkage
13mm socket to undo the seal for the driveshaft gaitor, at which point 3.4 litres of gearbox oil will empty on to the floor, as I doubt this has been drained.


Actually, the prices quoted earlier don't seem that bad thinking about this monster recovery from the scrappers.

[GTMaster]

Just a question about the price of Volvo parts: anyone know why they're so expensive? I found that the ignition cable to cyl.1 is damaged and thought i'd buy one. Through the dealer you can only buy all four. It costs (converted the price) 62 pounds. Is that reasonable?

[jlgrosvenor]

No, I wouldn't consider it 'reasonable' but if you feel you have little choice, you may go that route.

I am sure you can get something like a set of the custom Magnecor leads made up for a similar price.

One thing to remember is that although all dealers have the name 'Volvo' on the front of the building, this is usually where the similarities end. I have just enquired about shims to adjust the valve clearances:
Stratstone Volvo Derby - £6.87 each inc VAT
Harratt Volvo Sheffield - £5.38 each in VAT

For exactly the same part.

You may also find as much as double the difference on things like servicing and other work. Most people just assume because it has the name Volvo, the pricing will be standard rated. Not the case.

[Rufe]

This actually does wind me up, as ALL uk volvo dealers have the same retail prices, yet for some reason when ever people quote to me prices they have been given from our nearest competitor (which happens to be a stratstones volvo) their retail prices allways seem to be at least 5% to 10% more than the true retail price, this is to retail customers and to their trade customers alike. I have heard the same thing repeated regarding other stratstone dealers i will be honest. If in doubt shop around and get a second opinion, its about the only thing i can suggest.

Volvo pricing SHOULD be a standard rate, its a shame some dealerships do take the mick i am afraid. Labour rate price does vary from dealer to dealer, but volvo have what is called 'VSTG' which is a listing of the volvo standard times for every job, so even though £ rates can vary, the time charged does not (ie, a timing belt for one car could be 1.6 hours, so for that same car it should be 1.6 hours at every dealer).

I would like to think that the majority of volvo dealers out there are above board, but from my experience there are certainly some who don't have the morals they should, giving other dealers a bad name as people tend to link every dealer together in their minds, where in reality the truth couldn't be further from that.

As for the point about volvo prices being high, volvo uk set their prices, we as dealers simply sell them at what ever that retail price may be. I will admit some prices for some parts can seem very high, which is not good for me as if we are not competitive we simply don't sell these items, which is not a good thing from my point of view. Other prices can be very competitive and even cheaper than non genuine prices like for example I am yet to see a non genuine new radiator for most volvos being sold for less than i can sell them for (£107.99 all in, delivered).

I am from the school of thought that having prices and service levels being as best as they can will increase sales and therefore make up for the loss of profit margins on any individual part, this is why i offer such large discounts on most parts (most lead sets as in the example above I would generally give off around 30%, depending on individual part in question), because even though we make less on each part, we sell a lot more because of it so everyone is happy.

sorry to have gone way off topic

Simon

[GTMaster]

Well, i could've gone for a standard ignition cable for a fraction of the price (champion it was), but it would've looked horrible, and it just didn't seem to go into place properly . So i've gone original. There's a bunch of things that i can only obtain from the dealership, even though it's a 16 yr old car.
For e.g. just the spider seems way out of this place for that amount of money right? The only upside to original Volvo parts is that they'll most probably serve you for another 16 yrs....