Annoying steering column squeak

[slacker]

Greetings,

I love my 'new' 2000 XC... the ride, handling, stereo, etc., but ever since I adjusted the steering column height lower and extended the steering wheel closer to me I've developed an annoying high-pitched squeek. It squeaks mostly while traveling on rough pavement or uneven surfaces. I can get it to go away if rest the weight of my arm(s) on the steering wheel while driving (safety feature to force you to keep you hand(s) on the wheel??), but on longer drives prefer to have my hands at 8 and 4 instead of 10 and 2. At a complete stop I can reproduce the squeak by not turning the wheel and applying light force on the steering wheel in a left-right or diagonal direction.

I've tried just about every permutation of steering wheel height and extension, it might go away for a drive or two or three, but a set of train tracks revives it. It tended to be more intermittent (squeaked less) if the steering wheel was raised as high as it will go and pushed in as close to the dash as it would go. I'm led to believe it's just two pieces of plastic or metal & plastic rubbing together between the steering wheel and firewall that either need to be tightened and/or lubed but haven't the slightest idea how to get to them without voiding my warranty.

Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I couldn't seem to find a Chilton or Haynes for a 2000 V70, is there one out there? I did find a shop service manual on ebay but $390 was too steep especially since I still have 50K miles and 3 years left on my warranty.

Any suggestions? I'm to the point now where I'm willing to pay an hour or so of dealer shop time for them to pull the steering column cover off to see if they can pin point it.  The certified used car warranty explicitly exludes squeaks and rattles.

Thanks for letting me rant about this. http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/crazy.gif

[TrueBlue]

Can't offer any help about the squeak, but I can about the manuals.

There aren't any.

However, you guys are extremely lucky, for the princel sum of $10, yes ten bucks, you can download all you ever wanted to know about your car but were afraid to ask dicrect from Volvo cars US, for three whole days ($50 for a month).

Over here it's ten times as much for a week, and VCNA won't let me in (US residents only), so I'm well pleased.      http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/unhappy.gif  

Do some research and post back,

thanks,

[AWD*V70XC]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (TrueBlue @ Mar. 09 2004,20:22)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Can&#39;t offer any help about the squeak, but I can about the manuals.

There aren&#39;t any.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I have not found a manual in the stores but there might be one in the collection for GBP20. see here

Haynes Online (http://www.haynes.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&productId=12795&langId=-1&vtype=car&make=Volvo&model=Wagons)

[slacker]

Thanks... I did a search on Amazon.com and came up with something similar for 1990-98 model years.

http://www.amazon.com/exec....ks&st=* (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801990955/ref=qid=1078898308/sr=36-pd_sr_ec_ir_b/ref=sr_36_pd_sr_ec_ir_b_b/002-8582194-0928066?v=glance&s=books&st=*)

some info I found on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymot....5235731 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6762&item=2465235731)

http://stores.ebay.com/id=1590675&amp;ssPageName=L2 (http://stores.ebay.com/id=1590675&ssPageName=L2)

I think I&#39;m going to swing by an auto parts store and try to take a look at the 90-98 manual one of these evenings after work.