Front Wheel Drive V70XC?
 

Hello group!

So I'm not really sure what I have here.......
Last week I bought a 1998 V70 XC off of Craigslist here in Denver Colorado for 1100.00. Seems like a pretty decent car (this will be my 4th Volvo that I've owned). 198K for mileage SRS light on, CEL light is on as well. I knew it would need a few things addressed when I bought it, Typical older car neglect.

I got underneath it today and there is no rear drive drain at all. no rear drive shaft, no rear diff, no rear axles.
I put it on jack stands and no power to the rear wheels.

I then rechecked the VIN on the dash and it matches the title and insurance registration.

Did Volvo make a 1998 RWD XC ? What the hell do I have?

As far as I know, any model designated XC has all wheel drive. Send a pic.

Of that era, any XC was AWD. What's the VIN?

It was fairly common for people to give up on the rear drive, but I suppose it's unusual to have the differential removed. It's very common to have the angle gear in the front and the driveshaft removed.

The rear suspension should tell you whether it's a wrecked V70 that was repaired with XC style parts, or whether it's an XC with a lot of parts removed.

If this car has the XC trim, it is likely that someone removed all of the AWD parts. Another way to see if it was originally an AWD car is to look at the tunnel under the car for evidence of a center driveshaft mount.

The rear suspension was extremely different. FWIW. upper and lower control arms.

Pics from fwd xc
 

Vin
 

Think of the weight savings!

If I had to guess, some prior owner had an issue with the driveshaft shaking and maybe a differential whine. So, they removed the driveshaft as well as rear differential. They probably removed the angle gear too.

Those early AWD systems were known for problems. The later ones are much better. You'd spend more than the cost of a newer AWD wagon trying to restore that one.