Intro, new XC owner

[Sockeye]

After my wife was in an accident and our car was totaled, I went looking for a new ride. I work with two people who are both related to a man who owns a local volvo repair shop. I knew he sometimes had vehicles for sale so after a call it turns out the car he'd purchased for his son was for sale (son has a new XC90). It's a black '98 V70XC with 177K. Despite the miles though I feel pretty solid about this car. In the last year it has a new driveshaft, timing belt, water pump, idler, front wheel bearings, brakes, and front and rear engine seals. I purchased it for $4.2K which I felt was fair. It's black with tinted windows with no rips/tears etc in the leather.

So far my only gripe? The darn squeaking from the rear seat latch. The mechanic said he fixed it and I can see where he lubed it but it's still squeaking. Anyway, Hi!

[Sockeye]

Liberal application of grease to seat latch parts and squeak is gone

[Lokimer]

Welcome to the forums and welcome to the XC world.

Great car to drive when it wants too.

Be careful with the fragile and finicky AWD system. Keep up on maintenance so they won't bite you in the ass later on.

[Sockeye]

Thanks for the welcome. I just did my second repair...adjusted the parking brake at the center console. It took all of one minute

[almostarctic]

I just cured a few squeaks too.

Congrats. Keep your tires rotated. It's a fun car to drive. A bit of a gas pig but if you're light on the turbo, you can pull decent mileage. (Decent compared to contemporary SUV/CUV AWD 190ish hp cars).

Love the car. That's why it's Vol-v-lov

[Sockeye]

your MPG might have something to do with that IPD TCV no? :) It definitely is a gas pig compared to the civic it replaced, but I have a soft spot in my heart for AWD wagons. My last subie wagon had 280k when I sold it to someone looking for a commuter. Given the little money we got from insurance, if I was going to buy a used car, I wanted one I knew the history. I have a 2100lb pop up trailer I'm going to see if the Volvo can pull easily after winter. If it can, I'll get rid of my SUV.

BTW, I was looking at that TCV. I don't notice any Turbo lag to speak of now but was considering buying one...opinions?

[almostarctic]

BTW, I was looking at that TCV. I don't notice any Turbo lag to speak of now but was considering buying one...opinions?

You're right, the LPT has almost no lag anyways. But the TCV with the SNabb and the panel filter makes it all feel smoother. I found that before, there were weird points (not shift points) where the power wasn't quite there.

I was changing over vacuum lines anyways and decided to take the plunge with the TCV.


As almost everyone here will say, save your money to get the car to pristine stage 0. THEN start changing things. Also, there isn't much one can do to the LPT. A chip tune is by far the way to go by all reports. I'm saving up to do mine. Nice thing about a chip mod, is the wife will never see it and wonder why I spent $ on that. ;) Therefore she won't ask about it but will feel the car will have pep.

She wasn't too impressed with the blue silicone from the Snabb and the intercooler hoses:p. I told here they matched her eyes :rolleyes:

[Sockeye]

other than silicone hoses, I'm at stage 0 now. I was looking at the idp cold air intake but given the mild climate here I'll likely just go KN filter. I don't really need the car louder with minimal HP gains. What is the snaab intake? I'd thought snaab was a truck? All my interior hoses were just replaced OEM so silicon will wait a bit

[almostarctic]

Sorry Spelling issues:

http://snabb.3dcartstores.com/Intake-Pipes_c_1.html

It's tween the MAF and the turbo. If you look at the stock pipe, it's quite narrow with baffling mostly for sound.l The Snabb smoothed out the power curve, especially on the low end. Look up Snabb sconeman on Volvospeed or swedespeed.

[Sockeye]

they are purty

[Sockeye]

looks like that intake pipe could lead right into the ipd short ram or am I not envisioning this right. The snabb big bore kit looks like a good deal