V50 Ball joints and key
 

Hi,

So around 3.5 years into the ownership of my V50 (D5 R-Design) and the mileage has gone from 31k to 115k. The car has been pretty impressive in terms of reliability and other than servicing has only really needed front wheel bearings, tyres all round (a few times) and brake pads/discs.

At the last service they mentioned the ball joints needed doing soon. I've noticed there are 2 sizes available 18 and 21mm. Is this the size of nut on the ball joint? if not how do I measure them to check? Also I think the ball joints are the original ones as they are riveted to the bottom arms. I take it I can drill the rivets out and replace the ball joints on their own? I'm aware that you can get the bottom arm assembly but I did the bushes on them last year so don't want to replace them if I don't need to.

Also one of the keys has stopped operating the remote locking. I can open the car manually with it and still start it (sometimes causing the alarm to sound) but for now I'm using the second key as my main one. I've heard different things about the cost/procedure for fixing this. Anyone have ideas as to getting it sorted?

Many thanks

Rob

Hi
Starting from the simplest fixes - did you check the battery on fob? Are the connecting prongs alligned correctly and pressed against battery? If all is ok, its possible the circuit board is gone or car lost a code with key, both can happen. In the first case, you need new key & programming at Volvo, in second case - programming only may suffice.

Hi,

Yeah I should have said, I changed the battery which looks to be installed correctly but no change to the key. I'm guessing it'll need replacing or reprogramming then which I can't imagine is cheap!

Hi there,

Reading your thread with interest.

Had a quick look on eBay at the different ball joint options for this model and I can see that some are 21mm and others are 18mm.

what was interesting is that one of the listings for an 18mm ball joint says that it will only fit 2008 model V50 D5s with the last 6-digits of the chassis number up to "209290."

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VOLVO-S40...EFp:rk:11:pf:0

Whilst on the subject, I'm looking at buying a V50 D5 of similar vintage and was interested to read your comments on overall reliability.

What sort of MPG are you getting on average and is that mostly urban stuff or motorway?

Also, is your car running standard power?

J:)

Hi,

When I phoned the local volvo dealer with a chassis number they still weren't sure as to which ball joints I should get. I think I may just by a set of each and return the incorrect ones as it means I won't get stuck with the car in bits.

As far as mpg goes I reckon average is about 43-45mpg never really tried to monitor the other figures but that's what the dash read out says for average. I do a fair mix of driving, my commute is around 20 miles each way on country roads and I do quite a few motorway runs between Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

As I understand it the D5 is a dry DPF (I may be wrong) which I've heard may be slightly better in terms of reliability than the wet ones. Also mine is rarely used for short journeys which I think helps.

At the moment the car is completely standard but when the exhaust goes i will probably look at an upgrade which may then mean a remap as well. At some point in the near future I may get The engine BG cleaned to try and prolong the life of the EGR system. After that I think if the suspension starts to feel tired I'll maybe uprate that too but so far it has been an excellent bus for me!

Either you got it wrong all around or me, but I heard the exact oposite - D5 are wet DPFs making them superior to french "dry" dpf 4pot engines and less prone to clogging.
We need 3rd opinion now to choose the side! :)

My car is MY2009 and uses the 21mm wishbone ball joint, there is a change over according to VIN but I'm almost certain that your car won't be using the earlier 18mm variant.

Dry DPF indeed, non serviceable item so is intended to last the life of the car.
I would say that's worth running it on premium diesel if you already aren't, keeps the fuel injection, intake, and emissions equipment in much better condition. With cheaper standard diesel your car will clog with carbon much quicker and will incite more frequent DPF regenerations.
The last year I ran the car for about 9 months on standard BP diesel and Millers EcoMax, I actually saw worse economy and the car did far more regens than when it ran on BP Ultimate Derv, also the fuel filter was dirtier than usual.
You can guess what I'm running on again nowadays!
I don't think you'll need to use BG clean at all, but what I would do is clean out the throttle body - accessible by removing the airbox and a few other bits, you could do it on the car but it's a messy job, I removed the entire EGR assembly and it took some time to clean out the gunk.
Also check the turbo inlet pipe near the turbo end - this seems to be a common place where it cracks and causes boost leak, this makes the car run richer too.

well, I stand corrected then, btw.
/offtop/ - is it the same for 2005-2008 models? Always thought D5 have different DPF type than 1.6/2.0diesels from that year - meaning 1.6/2.0 is wet one?

Well finally got time to do the job at the weekend and can confirm that my car had the 21mm ball joints. Only got 1 side done as drilling out the rivets in the old ones took aaaaages but will finish the other side next week.

Annoyingly I found the inner cv boot on the passenger side had split. I replaced one on the other shaft a while back and it wasn’t a fun job...

The same here, one of the keys not operating remotely, I was quoted £60 to fix it, the circuit board is gone. I did not bother to have it fixed yet!