A few Newbie S60 Questions + Intro

[ESS60D5]

Hi everyone, this being my first post on the forum I guess I should give a brief introduction.

Following the recent terminal demise of my 2008 Skoda Fabia 3 1.9TDI estate (threw a rod at 149k mikles) I found myself in the uncomfortable position of having to find a replacement commuter hack and family taxi in short order. Unfortunately timing couldn't be worse, a month before Christmas and in the middle of a drawn out house move, meant funds were a little tight.

So the brief was to find something, preferable turbo diesel, highish spec, capable of transporting the family in relative comfort and safety but within a budget of £2k. I've pretty much always been a VAG man (with the odd BMW thrown in) and had never really considered a Volvo before but when a 2004 S60 D5 SE presented itself at a local dealers for what seemed sensible money I took a closer look.

Anyway, to try and cut a long story short, I ended up with this FSH, 136000 miler in Nautic blue for just over £1600 (plus 80 odd quid for a 6 month warranty which I may end up being very glad of)...



I knew it wanted two new front tyres and opted for a pair of Michelin Cross Climates which literally transformed the car from when it was wearing the worn out Autoguards it came with.

With the new tyres I absolutely love driving it and am slowly working through the various faults and niggles which I guess you can expect most 10+ year old cars to come with. I must say it's been a steep learning curve and this and other online resources have proved invaluable in helping me identify and tackle some of the more common issues that seem to afflict the S60.

It soon became apparent that the intercooler has gone the way of most 100k+ D5s but it's looking hopeful that my warranty company will stump up the cash for this. I've also discovered that the front pneumatic engine pad is goosed but have already got hold of a replacement via ebay for sensible money and will replace that myself, I'm just waiting for a new top torque bush to arrive before setting about that job.

So hopefully I'm getting there and once sorted the car will give me a year or two of safe, reliable, comfortable and rewarding motoring. I'm sure I'll have many questions along the way, but for now just to get started, I wonder if anyone can help with the following...

First off, purely out of curiosity, what is the component circled in the pic below? I only just noticed it while driving to work this morning and can see it has a wire exiting from the front by the screen so presumably some sort of sensor?



Next query relates to the headlamp wipers or more specifically the little plastic stops which limit the blades lower travel. As in this pic...



The stops on my nearside headlamp are missing and I wondered if there was any known source for these online (don't have a Volvo dealer particularly local). Either new or secondhand, is there a technical name for these as a google search has so far failed to show anything up.

Finally, the spare wheel storage arrangement in the boot. Does anyone have any photos showing the arrangement of the various foam/polystyrene pads which are presumably supposed to support the wheel in its well? Mine wewre just randomly positioned around or within the wheel and I can see no obvious placement for them. Maybe some pieces are missing from mine?

Sorry for the long post, especially as it's my first here. I hope I've not bored you all too much. Thanks in advance of any answers, pointers, suggestions etc and I'm sure I'll be back with many more queries as I delve deeper into the car and it's hidden secrets.

[Rossi-fan]

Hello and welcome. Those are pretty minor faults on your car. The intercooler is a common fault, if you're any good with scanners, you can change it yourself for not much more than£100. The wire you see is probably something to do with the rain sensor or Auto dimming rear view mirror. It's very annoying when someone takes bits off for whatever reason, and fail to put them back on for some reason. You should be able to find a headlight wiper guide easy enough.

About the car in general, does the engine seem good, they usually are. Is it manual or automatic?

[reggit]

The thing near the interior mirror looks like a microphone from an old nokia phone kit.

[ESS60D5]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

The car's a manual and the D5 does indeed run really well despite the leaky intercooler and vacuum leak at the lower mount (now temporarily plugged). I'm hopeful it'll run even better once these issues are resolved. I wasn't quite sure what to expect in terms of performance from the 163BHP engine but would say at the moment it's comparable to the remapped Fabia PD105 I ran previously. The Skoda was probably running at about 140BHP but was of course a fair bit lighter than the S60; but still quite hard to form a direct comparison as the torque delivery from the D5 is a lot smoother than the all or nothing shove you get from a remapped VAG PD lump.

The one possible remaining issue I have with the engine is a quite pronounced turbo whistle when cold. It was this that led me down the road to discover the blown intercooler. My local garage (sort of mates, my brother previously worked there for 10 years) actually confirmed the leak with a smoke test and seem to think my cold whistle is a result of this. Must admit I'm not totally convinced. Best case I think it could be a possible exhaust leak either just before or after the turbo (guess a smoke test performed on the exhaust would confirm or rule this out) or worse case, the turbo could be on it's last legs. I know it's hard to give an opinion without actually hearing the noise but has anyone any thoughts on this? It's most pronounced between 1000 and 1500RPM and is definitely boost related - I can mimic the typical siren noise (albeit more whistley than whiny) by varying throttle position, spooling the turbo up and down. The whistle also becomes audible again on over-run as the revs drop between approx. 1200 and 1000RPM. Once fully warmed up the noise is barely audible and not noticeable in normal driving.

Yes I used to be fairly handy with the spanners (owned a 73 VW camper for the past 18 years so I should be lol, rebuilt a few engines etc) but no longer have a great deal of spare time (or patience) and if I can get the warranty co. to pay up for parts and labour, there's not really any incentive to get my hands dirty.

I think reggit's probably right about that little black lump being some sort of hands free mic, hadn't thought of that before and just assumed it was an original Volvo fitment.

Still no luck in identifying those wiper guides/stops, guess it might be a scrap yard job.

Thanks again guys, loving the forum so far

[reggit]

Check the intake hose on the turbo, these go squishy with age and then split. Mine was giving a distinctively loud turbo spooling noise.

[ESS60D5]

Originally Posted by reggit

Check the intake hose on the turbo, these go squishy with age and then split. Mine was giving a distinctively loud turbo spooling noise.

Thanks, I had read about the intake hose going soft with age and so did give mine a bit of a squeeze and poke the other day. It didn't feel too bad when cold and I couldn't feel any obvious splits but I guess I should really remove it and have a proper look before ruling it out.

When the garage performed the smoke test on the pressure side I also asked them to pull the intake and give the turbo shaft a bit of a wriggle and look for any obvious issues but they said everything looked and felt fine with no discernible, untoward play in the bearings but I didn't specifically mention for them to check out the intake hose.

Would be nice if it turns out to be something simple like an over squishy hose, maybe I should swap mine out as a matter of course anyway.

Cheers

[GrahamBrown1]

If it's been looked after properly, letting turbo cool after running etc then the turbo will most likely be fine. They can last well over 200,000 miles with no probs. As said I would be looking for a split or soft intake hose.

[ESS60D5]

Originally Posted by GrahamBrown1

If it's been looked after properly, letting turbo cool after running etc then the turbo will most likely be fine. They can last well over 200,000 miles with no probs. As said I would be looking for a split or soft intake hose.

Thanks, you've convinced me to have a second, proper look at that intake hose next chance I get.

No real way of knowing for sure how well it was looked after in the past. Belonged to a lease hire company for the first three years so was probably ragged mercilessly but the documentation does show it was at least dealer maintained during this time. Thereafter it was owned for the past seven years by a family lady (evidence of child seat) in a rather well to do suburb of SE London. She again had it regularly maintained but mostly through what would appear to be budget independents. The MoT history indicates she had problems parking it, tyre sidewall damage reported most years but nothing major showing up there. The timing belt was changed at around 90k miles and it would appear shortly before it coming up for sale locally to me it had new brake disks, pads and shoes all round.

One thing that did show up from the documentation and online history is that it'd pretty much sat idle, probably laid up somewhere in its last 6 months with the previous owner. Amazing what history and information you can glean from a few simple online searches these days!

If I do get anywhere with a positive diagnosis to this I will be sure to post it all up on here.

Thanks for the help