So I took my 2000 S40 in for a wheel alignment and the tech noted I have a broken spring. Not surprising since I've already replaced the rears. Car only has 85K "easy" miles but I need to decide if I want to upgrade the strut mounts now or wait for when its time to replace the struts (they are in good shape now). Curious if the S40 has any track record of spring seat issues (this is a problem for the 850s as I've done the spring seats a few times on mine). My gut is to just replace the springs and upgrade when the struts need to be replaced.

Also need to get after a slow coolant leak near the thermostat. Still there after replacing the stat's gasket and the temp sensor o-ring. Wondering if I need to replace the housing or housing gasket???

 

Look at the 3 into 1 hose at the radiator near the t-stat housing. Mine was the source of a leak. Another potential leak source are the 2 tiny little hoses from the t-stat housing to the intake manifold. The 3rd trouble spot is on the back side with the hose that feeds the turbo cooling. This one will leak down onto the O2 sensor causing damage.

 

Thanks good tips - its quite possible I may have disturbed the hoses when i was replacing the tstat and sensor. I'm pretty sure its right around the t-stat housing - I had my indy give it a look as well when he had the car for the alignment - and he said the same. Its a slow leak (spotting the driveway stuff) so looks like I'll do the spring replacement this weekend, then poke around for the hoses... I have a replacement for the top hose that goes from the tstat cover to the radiator on hand and was thinking of whether to order a gasket for the housing.

 

You will need that gasket between the housing and the head if you take it apart as it's a thin paper type that easily breaks. I put mine back together with Permatex #2 on either side of the gasket.

Now that I think about it, the two small hoses near the housing are vacuum hoses. The 2 that hook into the intake I believe are part of the PCV system. Anyway, good luck with the chase. Leaky cars are not fun.

 

My 04 has a bad spring on the passenger side (front). Lost most of the lowest coil (the part in the plastic sleeve). I found out due to a slight clunking sound which was simply the broken coil thumping against the base. I took it out and no more clunk. One would never know unless they really looked for it.
The strut needs to be pulled, spring compressor then new spring installed. Also should be aligned afterwards due to movement within to knuckle mounting bolts. If you plan to do struts, probably cheaper in the long run to replace both struts/springs then have an alignment. Parts might run $300 if the rest of the strut assy can be reused, could be done yourself with a $50 spring compressor then taken for alignment. Remove 3 upper bolts, 2 strut bolts, 1 sway bar link and brake hose/abs cable retainers.

 

Looks like you are getting some great advice. I've heard that the 2000 model had some issues with the spring seat. If you are taking the spring out, might as well replace the bearing, seat and isolator while you are at it. The parts are cheap. Make sure you get a Volvo OEM isolator (the top most piece) as others tend to degrade quickly.


As others have said, this is an relatively easy DIY job if you have the instructions handy - just grab a set of spring compressors from Partsource and get access to an impact wrench. I've done this job about 10x now and 45min/side should do it. Of note, if your droplinks haven't been touched you may have some trouble getting them off and they may need to be replaced. Another easy job. Again, get Volvo OEM droplinks - double the price but they last 10x longer.


As for your coolant leak, I would start by looking very, very closely at the top hose. The bit where it splits three-ways is a very common failure point. While you are at it, ask your mechanic to take a good look at the clamp which holds the bottom hose in place. It is very prone to rust and will take your car out in a matter of seconds if the clamp fails. If the leak is further back behind the engine, I had a leak that I finally found after 18 months - it was the little 4" by 3/4" wide black rubber hose that connects to the turbo. It was spraying coolant all over and caused some noticeable rust on all nearby components.

 

One thing with the 2000s is Volvo changed the spring seat/bearing design mid year (5/00-ish) so the play would be to check my build date then decide if I want to upgrade both sides to the newer design or simply wait. The car is my son's summer ride and doesn't get much use when he's at college so it probably doesn't get more than 2-3K miles a year thus my thought to just do the spring and wait a couple years to do the upgrade/struts.

 

Makes sense to me! Where are you located just out of curiosity?

 

I'm in western Connecticut. Lots of Volvos around here and UPS ground is 1-2 days for me from Tasca Parts, FCP (a 30 minute drive) and EEROPARTS...

 

as an update - took the strut out today (got side tracked after a 90 mph microburst in a t-storm took down a 30 inch oak and dropped it across my driveway). when the spring broke it messed up the bushing so I'll be doing the seat/bushing update as well.

 

Same problem recently with my 2000 V40 - broken front coil spring. I had actually found a shop that I thought looked promising and decided to pay someone else to do the work for once. Went with new struts and springs both sides and reused the upgraded upper strut mount kits that I'd installed two years ago. Long story short, the shop botched the strut installation with the upper spring seats way out of position. So I have one noisy strut now.

Same shop also botched the sway bar bushing installation and the rear coil spring installation and didn't bleed the brakes that they billed me $100 to do. They also broke a CV joint boot so now I have a fair amount of work to do.

I go through this every few years thinking there must be a competent, honest shop out there somewhere.

This is my daughter's learn-to-drive car so maybe she'll wreck it and I can move on.

 

Not sure how they could mess up the CV... I did the rear coil springs on the S40 myself. The only difficulty I had was figuring out how to remove the trunk liner from where its pinned in the interior corner. removing the strut today was straight forward except that the stud for the sway bar end link was rusted up (ok its 15 years old...) and started to strip out with an allen wrench... I already had the odd 18mm sockets/wrenchs from my 850 so no trip to Sears there. Good news is Volvo sells a strut mount upgrade kit (OEM PN 30630043) - paid $100 using a discount coupon at eeuroparts - but FCP and Tasca also sell the OEM kit.

 

Rough handling - pulled it way out. But it's an old car so to be expected I guess.

I did one rear coil spring myself. Not too difficult. The problem with the pros is they're not detail-oriented, don't read the manual before doing a job. Most customers can't tell if the job was done right so as long as you can drive it out of the shop it's all good.

 

OK so this project took a turn to the dark side. Just got my updated strut mounts - went to install with the new coil and discovered the S40 springs uncompress to a length my spring compressor can't reach. If I grab 3 coils I don't think I can compress enough to get the top nut on, if I try to grab 4 coils my tool is not long enough. Looks like I'm off to see if I can rent a (bigger?) spring compressor... I may still try to grab what I can and press with the tool I have but geez, did they take these things out of an old mattress? I've done struts on my 850 and on an Audi with my compressor... and didn't notice the problem during disassembly since the spring was broken, shortening the length...

 

A picture of the original 2000 S40 strut mount (on cars with a build date prior to 5/00 = check the door jamb to find this info). The new mount is about 1/2 inch taller and requires a change to the 2001-2004 strut part number. When done I will will post up a note on old vs new part numbers...