Jacking points
 

Hi,

Am I the only one annoyed by the crappy jacking points on the new V70? My floor jack is alway millimeters from slipping off the rear ones, and only way I trust jacking the front is putting the jack all the way in to the sub-frame bolts. The triangular areas mention in the manual just buckle if you try...

Thanks

I cannot say I have ever used the Volvo jack or jacking points. I have always used either a trolly jack or a bottle jack.

I truly see no point in jacking the body to remove a wheel, by the time the suspension is at full droop the car is so high it's unstable.
I jack under the wishbones or sub frame mountings.

Paul.

But I feel it's not good practise to place the jack against a moving part of the car (e.g. a part that will compress the spring as you jack it up), for example under the hub balljoint, or somewhere along the wishbone. It just doesn't seem as safe as putting the jack on a rigid part of the car, so I'm not sure how to avoid having to let the wheel 'drop' down while raising the car.

On my V70, the lowest rigid part of the car is the wishbone rear bush housing, but that's only about an inch lower than the subframe and sills, so doesn't make that much difference.

I agree that it never seems obvious where to place the jack, but I'm more interested in how the axle stands fit to be honest (as I always use them) and I find the wishbone rear bushing is a good shape for the 'crescent' shaped top section of the stands.

I often wonder about this.
Last week I swapped my winter wheels/tyres for the summer ones.

As I wasn;t actually going under the car, I used my trolly jack on the front jack points. and lifted it a bit higher so both the front and back wheels were off the ground...nice and quick but not ideal... I have never worked-out where to correctly position axle stands. Points I use are Circled (pic of jacking points taken from manual):
http://www.defender2.net/gallery/alb...g%20points.jpg

Those are the points I tried to use and they buckled!

They have never buckled on our XC70 cars.

That point is actually in sort of three sections, one is reinforced with a second piece of metal behind. If you look it's where there's a hole you can put your finger in. You can also tell by knocking on it. I found this out the hard way by buckling part of it too!

For the front I jack on that point and put axle stands further in on the engine subframe bolts

For the rear I jack on the reinforced sills then support immediately behind on a similar reinforced section with a hole. I find the rear far easier to jack/support.

I always jacked mine on the front subframe rear mounting for quick jobs . For longer jobs or where I wanted to use axle under the subframe mounts I lifted the car on a jacking point using a trolley jack. Never had any buckling or problems. Be aware though that unless you use a hard rubber pad on your trolley jack it can damage paint allowing corrosion to start. The supplied jack was purely for emergencies and a pig to use as the handle used to turn it is anything but user friendly.

I too have found this difficult with the V70.
The jacking points are poorly marked and explained.

When using a trolley jack I find it catches the plastic trim over the sills either side of the reinforced jacking points. I fear that this may at some point ruin the plastic sills.

SO i resort to using a block of hardwood on the trolley jack and lifting from there. Once high enough I get axle stands under the subframe or engine mount where possible to give extra support.

I find the car body is too long to get the trolley jack under to those points and lift from there as I would prefer to do. I could then put the axle stands under the jacking points.

However, I've never had an issue with the portable jack included with the car when I've needed to change a wheel in a hurry. It's always worked OK for me on a hard surface and lifts the car enough to take the wheel on/off. I wouldn't use it for anything more than that though

I bought a low profile, high lifting trolley jack when I got the XC70. It's rated 2500 kg, so it can take the whole car if necessary.