I aint that smart, I hit, wiggled, cussed, hit tire with hammer, cussed some more then you tubed it !!!

Thanks all interesting stuff, so I had a go at this last night and can report some good progress, the travel has reduced and a short test drive felt better, I will monitor it over the next few days (...

I have never touched the brake system, I don't know when if ever it has been bled / fluid changed. I agree that it maybe the master cylinder or something else, but it seems to me that step one is to...

Pedal feels spongy, reservoir still full.

I guess bleeding is step one ( hopefully of one ) towards diagnosis.

I have seen plenty of generic how to bleed your brakes vids on you tube.
...

Thank you for the detailed response, that is awesome, it sounds quite do able when I get a round to it.

I do think I have a similar sounding leak to yours, I think I'm going to need to take out the angle gear to fix it, how big of job was that, do you have a good you tube for it ?? Thanks

It was the rear cam seal................ I think. I still have really slow leak, which I think has to be coming from the turbo lines somewhere, definitely small enough not to be urgent. I think the...

Astro 14 was totally right. I spent way too long messing round on the internet, eventually I just got on with it and after screwing about with a mirror on a stick for a while I was suspecting the...

You are right about the correlation / causation theory. Also It doesn't really matter at this point. Done a fair bit of cleaning up this morning. It certainly looks like the turbo area is looking...

I would have to get the transfer case out to even check ? I think it makes sense seeing where the oil is coming out.

I will look for a schematic to try to find where to look for that. I hope you are right !!!!!!!!

1. I have an oil leak. I need to figure out where it is coming from. I had a fairly good clean up and very short test drive. It appears to be coming out on the drivers side bottom of the engine...

The back of the bottle among lots of other specs states that it's recommended for

Toyota T-1V

Mazda JWS 3309

Volvo 97340, 97341, 1161521.

Does that make it suitable for my 01 V70 XC ? I...

It was, I put in an appropriately sized one yesterday so maybe all of my talk about the alarms was nonsense !

Update, thanks all, there is very good chance that the battery is the wrong spec, I was frankly stunned when they replaced the battery for free because the car wouldn't crank, I didn't expect that on...

Awesome, everyone says these old euro cars are maintenance money pits, so far it's mostly a question of disconnecting superfluous and ridiculously over complicated systems.

I will try that, although possibly in reverse order of your suggestions based on the least pain in the ass !

Tks

Should have mentioned, battery is only about three months old. The "dealer" put it in the day I bought the car.

'01 xc 70.

After about 6 hours of sitting yesterday it was too flat to crank the car ( but did light up the dash etc ) and I have some really random thoughts, please tell me which ones are utter...

Thanks for the info, just done the school run with no warning lights. I believe the oil around the top of the engine was because the cvvt solenoid was quite loose allowing a weep. I have done a...

Could have been, I also found the cvvt solenoid was weeping a bit of oil and the bolts weren't very tight. Cleaning the oil around the coil packs caused a misfire.

Is that the square section channel in the oil pan ? It had some build up but wasn't blocked. I did the " rubber glove " test and it sucked into the oil filler suggesting correct operation.

I took...

Thanks, the oil level check right after shut down sounds like a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. I'm getting a new sensor tomorrow. My gut says it won't make a difference, and I don't usually...

Did the rubber glove test all good ! Car has 97K.

Did the rubber glove test all good !