newish to T5's - sub frame probs

Hi all

I have recently joined the T5 world with a late 1994 850 T5 saloon, standard car. I have had the car for 6 months or so and have to say that it is a great car. In terms of performance for money ratio I would say it would be hard to beat.
That said I have had a few problems with the car that have turned out to be very expensive.. I bought the car from an independant "quick/sports car dealer" in the east midlands (loughborough). It was a 2 owner car with 49k on the clock, full Volvo service history, HPI checked, very clean and drove very well (except for some clutch judder in first).
After parting with the readies I covered some 10000 trouble free miles. At the 60000 Volvo servive I was horrified to see that the mechanic had written "sub frame badly damaged" engine out of line, worn engine mount bushes etc etc, it was one of those sinking feelings that you get now and again when you know there is going to be trouble ahead.

After a lot of phoning around, including the garage where it came from, who would not lend a hand as the car was techically working ok to them (but had obviously been sold with the fault) I decided to have the repairs carried out. The cost to replace the sub frame and clutch £1000 - gulp.

It drives like a totally different car now but still has an oil leak that I cannot find, back in the garage I suppose .

I am thinking of performance tuning the car also. I have contacted TME in Scunthorpe and for £1800 can have the suspension upgrade and ECU reprogramming and exhaust package. Supposedly this will give an extra 40 -45 extra BHP. To me this seems like a small increase in power for the cost, has anyone here had this enhancement and if so was it worth it?

Many thanks if you have not fallen asleep reading all this....

Ceza:-)

There is A LOT of debate all over the web about chip upgrades, there are many different things said about the different ones on offer (although many say the TME is best).

Have a look through our forums and you'll see we are having a chip shootout on the rolling road in a couple of weeks so we'll get some results from that.

45bhp IS A LOT of power increase, trust me!!! 0-60 will be coming up (with good tyres cold weather) in under 6 seconds, a top speed of 162mph, quarter mile time down to about 14.2 secs.

But then again if you want cheap power increases, then a bleed valve will be the cheapest option. Again do a search for these on this forum and you'll see lots of info.

The volvo tuning forums that are active are:

US!
www.volvospeed.com
www.swedespeed.com
www.volvotuning.com
www.t5uk.com

Do a search at these, ask a few questions and you'll learn a lot!

Welcome to 'the club' :)

[Simon Linton]

Who was the dealer Ceza? I also live in loughborough and I'd like to know who obviously sold you a pup.

P.S. Last chance to join us at Donington on the 9th...email me if you can make it; email is on profile.

[Richard Swinney]

Ceza,

Like Simon I am also interested to know who the dealer was as I am considering a look at a T5 which is currently at a garage in Loughborough.

Regards

Richard

Hi all again

The garage in question is Autosport in Loughborough centre near the employment offices. I guess it is something that I never thought of looking for and would suggest that anyone buying a car has a good look underneath first. I seem to have missed something exciting on June the 9th?

Regards
Ceza