I agreed to purchase a clean XC70 thinking I can fix anything that comes up. I might be overly optimistic, but I've always wanted one since the seats are nice and the cars look cool. I'm driving a Subaru Outback wagon and a Volvo 240 wagon at the moment.
Anyway, the check engine light is on and the owner (just some guy from Iowa) said, "You can't get the OBD codes off of these swedish cars, so I have no idea what's wrong but it runs fine. I get 27mpg."
Well, I drove the car and it's all fine in terms of sounding quiet, and tracking down the road. But it has NO POWER. This car is slower than my normally aspirated 850 wagon was. My guess is that the turbo isn't even working. There's no oil leaks that I could spot and this dude's driveway was clean without any oil anywhere. Exhaust wasn't smoking or anything... Coolant is coolant and isn't mixed with the oil.
So my first question is what I can do to scan the codes. I figured any OBDII reader for free at Auto Zone or O'Reilly will tell me bare bones info. And then I need to figure out how to re-enable the turbo. I don't mind driving it around like an old man, but I presume these cars were able to get out of their own way when new.
I didn't determine anything else to be wrong with the car other than it has a burned out head lamp. Does dielectric grease on the wires help with that?
I feel like it's in good enough shape to fix and drive daily. IPD urethane bushing inserts, fixing the turbo, and then going after anything weird I find such as PCV plug ups or whatnot. I will probably change the timing belt and water pump this summer. It has 113k miles and I doubt anyone ever did it. Are there any immediate things to check such as transmission fluid change, or changes of AWD related fluids? Will this car bankrupt me after living with mostly RWD 240s?
I'm excited.. It's a new toy and I get to learn a whole new set of information about P2 Volvos. The newest Volvo I've had before this was my '94 855. I've had a 960 before as well. I really liked the 960 and it was another car everyone told me not to get because they're unreliable. It's still running around town after being in an accident back in 2005
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