What I did today thread...

[stuart bowes]

the knocks I've had have been:

1 - drop links (rock car side to side with roof rails or top of door shut) which seemed fine on visual inspection but turned out to just need tightening up (despite having done so properly when fitting)

2 - ball joint (knocking over uneven road / pot holes / speed bumps - not easy to diagnose while all bolted up tight, the spring and wishbone are so tightly sprung together you can barely move it by hand but when I took it all apart they were floppy as anything

3 - inner track rod ends (slight knocking when turning hard, and wobbling wheels by hand had a very very slight left/right play, literally about 2mm but enough to annoy me) outers seemed fine apart from a bit of corrosion, replaced inner and outer at same time anyway

there are of course other possibilities, top mounts, etc

from the description 'over bumps and on hard turning' I would look at drop links first (or possibly the roll bar bushes)

[ilmiont]

What I did today, pt. 2: Went for a drive.

All good brakes-wise, but the knocking is real and unmissable. I'm looking for something that's developed quickly, probably as a direct result of the pothole hit (I've barely driven since then), and which has successfully evaded MOT discovery despite them being prompted to look for it.

1. Drop links - 2 years old, Meyle HD. They do seem like a good suspect for the symptoms but MOT man didn't take issue.
2. Ball joint - not sure there's anything I can do to investigate this myself
3. Track rods - are hopefully fine, as I fitted new Volvo inners and outers last August.
4. Top mounts - looked at them in the gloom this evening, neither seems to move by hand.
5. Roll bar bushes - not checked yet, too dark and wet to be crawling under the car.

It seems to be the front nearside and I think I can reproduce it by rocking the corner up and down. It was dark, rainy, and parked on a hill so I didn't want to try this too enthusiastically just yet. The sound seems to be coming from somewhere back from the wheel (back as in towards the rear of the car, not towards the wheel arch).

I've emptied the glovebox. No help. I've tried to think of anything I might have left loose in all my DIY lately. I did have a thought that maybe the handbrake cables aren't secure, but they look snug enough and the noise definitely seems to be from the front, whereas the cable exit point is quite a long way back really.

A few observations:

- Reliably happens midway through a 2nd-exit roundabout. Not sure this is too helpful as weight transfer, steering, and power delivery are all involved then.
- Seems it can happen when coming off the throttle (e.g. 2nd to 3rd gear change as the nose flattens out).
- Is really loud at its worst. It sounds like something is very loose but it all feels tight to drive.

I made a recording but it's basically unusable. I stupidly put my phone in the pop-out cupholder in the dashboard, so most of the noise is the phone vibrating against the hard plastic. There was no knock for most of this recording, but the following points are notable:

02:55 - Interesting bit beginning. Indicating left, tight turn into uneven road.
03:07 - KNOCK into rut. About as bad as it gets.
03:17 - Does it again, more muted.
There are a few more occasions but they're mostly masked by the background noise.
05:01 - about 5mph, with a lot of left steering lock, knock as I turn into my road.

+ YouTube Video

I'll stop derailing this thread and open a new one if I don't get to the bottom of it. Maybe it will turn out to be a stone somewhere - there's been so much debris on the roads that it wouldn't surprise me if something's got where it shouldn't be.

[Simmy]

Originally Posted by ilmiont

PASS at MOT. No advisories except a verbal suggestion to get the headlamp lenses properly polished before next year.

The tester's words were "the brakes are spot on mate" so I'll try to stop fussing and let them be now!

Weirdly though, we failed to diagnose a new loudish knock which I've been noticing over bumps and in sharper cornering. It's materialised over the past month, and may be coincident with when I hit an awful stretch of potholes hard in the dark and rain. The car still drives and handles fine, and feels as tight in the steering and ride as normal.

I thought the noise was rocks in the undertray, but there were none there when I took it off last night. It was knocking quite badly over a particularly uneven road on the way to MOT today, but I got the pass without anything being detected. I revealed my concern and he gave it another shake test, re-inspected the suspension, and started levering the exhaust mountings around again - nothing found. I drove it away and within a mile there it was again. I will keep monitoring this.



1) I'm sure the cables are in the expanders correctly. The cables and expanders are brand new. All seem to work fine.
2) Standard H bar.
3) The new shoes are made in India...



I don't see any conclusion other than that the new shoes are wrong. Everything works faultlessly without them. Twice now, I've fitted the new shoes and everything's been too tight; twice I've also refitted the old ones, and the adjustment has matched what others get in the online videos.

how very strange shoes marked made in india the ones i bought from main dealers were in a blue box marked made in china with no markings on the shoes they solved all my handbrake problems as for the rattle check the top spring mount as they sometimes come unbonded it easy to spot the centre at the top of the shock sticks up higher under the bonnet.

[Simmy]

Originally Posted by ilmiont

PASS at MOT. No advisories except a verbal suggestion to get the headlamp lenses properly polished before next year.

The tester's words were "the brakes are spot on mate" so I'll try to stop fussing and let them be now!

Weirdly though, we failed to diagnose a new loudish knock which I've been noticing over bumps and in sharper cornering. It's materialised over the past month, and may be coincident with when I hit an awful stretch of potholes hard in the dark and rain. The car still drives and handles fine, and feels as tight in the steering and ride as normal.

I thought the noise was rocks in the undertray, but there were none there when I took it off last night. It was knocking quite badly over a particularly uneven road on the way to MOT today, but I got the pass without anything being detected. I revealed my concern and he gave it another shake test, re-inspected the suspension, and started levering the exhaust mountings around again - nothing found. I drove it away and within a mile there it was again. I will keep monitoring this.



1) I'm sure the cables are in the expanders correctly. The cables and expanders are brand new. All seem to work fine.
2) Standard H bar.
3) The new shoes are made in India...



I don't see any conclusion other than that the new shoes are wrong. Everything works faultlessly without them. Twice now, I've fitted the new shoes and everything's been too tight; twice I've also refitted the old ones, and the adjustment has matched what others get in the online videos.

how very strange shoes marked made in india the ones i bought from main dealers were in a blue box marked made in china with no markings on the shoes they solved all my handbrake problems as for the rattle check the top spring mount as they sometimes come unbonded it easy to spot the centre at the top of the shock sticks up higher under the bonnet.

[ASt85]

Over the last couple of months, since the lat MOT, I've noticed a swish/swish note from the rear drums - the off side is prone to binding if the car is left with the handbrake applied.

On a fairly regular basis I've brought my 2004/5 C70, which has a not dissimilar rear brake assembly to that of the P2, to a halt using the handbrake alone - this appears to clean the crud from the drums/shoes. I have the adjusters for 850's fitted in both my 2004/5 C70 and P2 2004 V70 - NB shoes, pads, front discs, rear disc/drums are all OEM Volvo.

When left with the handbrake applied in damp weather, the C70's frequently binds on - "jumping " between forward and reverse does frees it. It rarely happens in the summer months, which inclines me to think that the C70 OEM shoes may be prone to swelling due to water absorption. This does not ever happen with the V70 - of note the rear shoe OEM codes are different, which implies the specs are different.

[ilmiont]

I've inspected the front end again, albeit still with the wheels on the ground. I've checked the top mounts now it's daylight; both seem to be tight and certainly not moving independently of the body.

I dug out the phone mount I bought a while ago and stuck it on the sunroof; there's still a lot of background noise and most of the clunks were muted today, except for this dreadful one in the roundabout situation which is a reliable trigger:

+ YouTube Video

The car feels completely normal and there's no feedback through the controls when the knock happens, even a really big one like that.

I'm still wondering if there's a stone somewhere. I have had noises like this that were stones in the undertray, but the undertray is clear and I'm not sure where else a stone could be caught.

Admittedly I don't really know why I'm still trying to investigate this myself, as a qualified MOT tester has already failed to find a problem. I will have to get a garage to drive it now.

[Onewheel]

Installed a set of refurbished xenon headlights to a V70.

[ilmiont]

1) Removed the undertray to rule it out as the cause of my knock (the LH side of the tray never sits completely flush with the subframe). Only running down my lane and back confirmed the knocking is still there. The car is now booked into my local specialist for Tuesday and I'm going to stop driving it in the meantime.

2) New air filter fitted. Something I can do without messing up!

3) Removed the sunroof glass to inspect why everything's jammed. I found the sun shade's fabric has completely detached from the backing; I thought it was just peeling around the handle, but no it's a right old mess over the whole thing. I've pushed it back to try and hide it again, and am now seeking a good used shade (NLA from Volvo). The shade's four sliding clips are not broken (I have new ones but the old ones look intact) and the actual problem seems to be that the drip tray is disconnected on the RH side, as the securing tab for the arm that connects it to the glass mounting point has snapped off.

4) Investigated evidence of damp coming down from above the oil filter, spotted while removing the undertray. I've traced it to slight seepage from the hose to the power steering pump. The area is sticky, the bottom of the pump is damp, and there's mess going all the way down. The reservoir level looks normal for now. I was planning another power steering fluid flush soon anyway (I already have the fluid), and will now hold off until I have a new hose to fit too.

5) Realised my car is well overdue a PCV inspection/replacement, per the service schedule. Volvo say 108k, then 162k; the 108k service was missed and it's now on 159k. Only the hose that terminates near the oil filler cap has been replaced, in isolation at 96k. I have no evidence of PCV problems but I think I shall ask for a quote and opinion on Tuesday about whether this does now need to be done. As ever, I am erring towards having it done now, as I'd rather be safe than sorry.

[Nick6262]

New rear brake pads on the V70 R.

£50 for a pair of brembo ones from euro car parts. First time doing pads and it was almost pain free. I managed to chip some of the paint off the calipers whilst knocking the pins out. Bot annoying but they needed a touch up anyway. So that's a job for another day.

No idea how to check the disc thickness, do I need some Vernier calipers/micrometer?

Checked rear diff oil level and it looked ok. Still have a slight leak from somewhere but I guess it's not worth fixing as long as most the oil stays in the diff.

[Faust]

Cleaned my EGR valve today (2007 P2 D5 XC70).

Not a difficult job, but filthy dirty and horrible. It was bit clogged around the edges but not too bad. Few big lumps of carbon came out (used a full can of carb/EGR cleaner).

Smoke on start up seems to have gone. Will have to see if smoke under load has gone as well.