So lets talk mid 2000's Volvo's -

I have a line on a S60 AWD 2.5T for WAY less than challenge money. I walked around it and the exterior looks great (dark blue) the interior is black leather and looks to be in great shape. No rust visible anywhere under it. It is an automatic.

This is not the ar but it looks exactly like this

I am told it needs: PCV valve and a timing chain/belt??? Maybe tension-er? maybe both? The check engine light is on.

From my understanding it is a very similar car to my 04 X type

What should I look for with these cars? I have driven them in the past and they are kind of plain vanilla to me. Not bad at all but definitely more of a sole less appliance than something sporty and fun. I am good with that at the moment. My current ride is going to my daughter (97 Corolla) when she gets her licence in a couple months and I recently got rid of my other car that I have not replaced so I will be needing something soon and this looks to be a decent thing to step into.

Anyone have any incite into these cars?

Whistling at idle? That's a 450 dollar pcv fyi. Happened on my wife's c30 but was luckily under warranty, apparently the pcv is part of the oil pump housing or something.

Things to look for: typical Volvo interior weirdness like panels splitting, and glovebox doors warping after being parked in the heat.

Always do the tensioner with the timing belt, otherwise you will feel like an idiot when the tensioner seizes and trashes the motor 20k after you did all that work to change the belt.

Good cars if you stay on top of that, the PCV issues, and transmission fluid changes. Very safe and fully galvanized so they don't really rust.

Volvos after the turn of the century are just not the same. More expensive, trouble prone, complex etc. I was a Volvo guy until I had a 2001 V70 T5. Transmission, sensors, relays, fuel pump..... on and on.

I really like the looks of that car. It sort of reminds me of the Subaru Legacy from the mid-2000s; nice to look at in an understated way. If you aren't craving excitement, I'd say go for it. It's not a Honda or Toyota in terms of reliability, but how bad could it be compared to a Jaguar? If anything, consider it a learning experience.

Got more info on it. Timing belt is due and it needs a fpr not a pcv. I don't know the millage. I hope to get it up on a lift tomorow.

Got a couple photos I will try posting them later. Oh it is a 2006 I think.

The jag and this share many of the same suspension parts. I don't know about the driveline. In either case they were both fords.

FWIW, the PCV tank/trap/thing for my S40 (whiteblock engine, same thing) was $32 for the unit, plus a few more bucks for things like the FU hose the runs from the box to the top of the cylinder head (whiteblocks don't have valve covers per se) that goes rock hard and fails with some regularity, and some cam seals that blew out because had been ziptying the dipstick down to keep it from blowing out... for over 30,000mi. I also bought the special cam lock tool so I could reset my exhaust cam pulley and hopefully clear a persistent correlation fault without having to buy a $300 exhaust pulley/cam phaser.

Unbolt the intake manifold and it's right there. The real expensive part is the hose that runs from the oil trap around the engine back to the turbo, which isn't really a common failure part that I've seen. Either way, IPD is your friend here.

I also had a FPR fail. That was something like $250. Ugh. Of course it's the same design as a $50 GM part but GMs are 4 bar and Volvo is 3.5 bar and I didn't want to go down the road of saving money to do things almost right.

dean1484 wrote: The jag and this share many of the same suspension parts. I don't know about the driveline. In either case they were both fords.

The only Ford that should share anything with a mid-00s Volvo is a Five Hundred, which is a Ford-ified S80, which was a stretched S60.

Pretty sure that transverse Jags were based on Ford Mondeos (Contours) and were from before the Ford-Volvo marriage.

The Jag X-type was a Ford but the Five Hundred is a Volvo through and through. At that time, Ford was having Volvo do the large chassis, Mazda do the small chassis and four cylinder engines, and Ford took on the trucks and V6-up engines. I'm going to assume that this includes the Crown Vic, the chassis update with an aluminum subframe and rack and pinion steering has Volvo written all over the design. Nobody else in the world is enough of an shiny happy person to use shallow tapers on studs for ball joints and tie rod ends.

dean1484 wrote: Got a couple photos I will try posting them later. Oh it is a 2006 I think.

2006 is good, it should have the 6 speed instead of the 5 speed. They still have the same valve body issues (ALL Aisin-Warner automatics have valve body issues...) but the 6 speed is a stronger unit. I don't know if the low pressure 2.5T had it, but I know the S60R had reduced torque in the first two gears with the 5 speed, while the 6 speed doesn't need torque limiting to keep the trans happy.

I'll also allow that the 5-speed in my little 4 cylinder car screams like straight cut gears in 1st gear. If I get an S60 it will definitely not have the 5 speed

The car won't rust, ever. Volvo figured out how to make cars not rust as far back as the last of the rear drive models. I've a customer with a 960 that still looks perfect underneath.

crankwalk wrote: Volvos after the turn of the century are just not the same. More expensive, trouble prone, complex etc. I was a Volvo guy until I had a 2001 V70 T5. Transmission, sensors, relays, fuel pump..... on and on.

I have a 2001 V70 T5M. It's for over 200K and is great. But it was maintained by the PO

That's a 5cyl version of the 6cyl in my mom's s80. In other words.. easier! I've done two timing belts on that s80 so far, and i don't even consider it that bad even though it's a straight 6 mounted SIDEWAYS. You'd think it would be worse, honestly. I wouldn't be afraid of the timing belt, its going to be far from the hardest out there. If you're using timing marks, make sure and look at the procedure because i dont think Volvo wants #1 cyl on TDC when you install the belt, unlike pretty much everyone else.

As far as the PCV, from what i know Volvos of that era have a pcv oil separator housing thing attached to the side of the block under the intake manifold. So, you have to remove the intake manifold to get to it. Again, not hard. But, if you don't want to pay for the part, do what i did! My mom's s80 stopped 'restricting' the pcv flow and basically became a huge vacuum leak putting the whole crankcase under intake vacuum and causing other problems. The whistling oil cap was the most entertaining part! Anyway, there's a BIG vacuum hose going from the intake manifold to the PCV box. So big i was able to stuff a toyota supra PCV valve inside that big hose and then plug it back into the intake. Now it's regulating a reasonable amount of flow in the pcv system and everything's great. It's been working fine like that for at least 40k miles now.

DrBoost wrote:

crankwalk wrote: Volvos after the turn of the century are just not the same. More expensive, trouble prone, complex etc. I was a Volvo guy until I had a 2001 V70 T5. Transmission, sensors, relays, fuel pump..... on and on.

I have a 2001 V70 T5M. It's for over 200K and is great. But it was maintained by the PO

I maintained mine religiously. Fuel pump relays, sensors, MAF, fuel pumps failing before 100k aren't really maintenance things in my book. My 850s were flawless and I put hundreds of thousands of miles on them between the two.