well i have a 1998 volvo v70 with a b5254fs engine ME 4.4 manual trans. whats been going on is it started with it stalling one time when coming to a red light. then a few weeks later when coming to a stop in traffic it stalled again. over the course of that week it began stalling often when coming down to idle. it began having slight missing while driving at any speed or rpm. the cap a rotor for the ignition was very old so i replaced them knowing it was past due anyway (having that part cause a misfire in the past). so when i did this it started running better while it was running but the dying at idle still exists and intermittent missing is still occurring when driving. last night it died for the first time ever on the throttle going up the hill to my house. normally it runs better at higher RPM lately. it took me longer than ever to get restarted and almost didnt make it up the hill to my house again. when i popped the hood the throttle (body? the plastic case around the pulley where the cable attaches) was vibrating. it was making an electric buzz and was physically vibrating when i touched it KOEO. anyone seen anything like this before or heard of anything like this? any suggestions on how i might proceed?

 

in case anyone wondered i got ahold of IPD and they suggested trying to clean my air mass sensor and oxygen sensor before replacing anything. trying that currently let yall know how that works out.

 

cleaned the air mass sensor for scientific purposes made it about 150 miles and had another episode not as dramatic but cleaning the oxygen sensor(s) seeing how that does. also ordered an IPD ignition coil as that has been a trouble part for me in the past.

 

I noticed that you mentioned having changed the distributor cap and rotor but no mention of the spark plugs. How old are the plugs? Bad plugs can cause all of the symptoms that you have described and will adversely affect the O2 sensors and cat converter as well if not firing properly. Have you had your cat converter checked? How about a OBDII reading for trouble codes? I am sure you must be triggering the CEL. Many auto parts stores will do that for free. Have you checked the hoses on your Idle Air Control which is located right in the area that you felt the vibration. The vacuum lines in that area are subject to failure. It is likely that you vacuum leak somewhere in the intake.

 

I have a 98 V70 GLT and have learned quite a bit about these vehicles. There are some simple and easy to repair things that if neglected will cause great aggravation and contribution to other problems. One of the main things I have learned about this particular engine is to never overlook and neglect the plastic and rubber parts, like vacuum lines and PCV system, CV and steering boots, etc. You have other options to check before dropping the bucks for an ignition coil. Get some Volvo spark plugs from IPD instead. That's what I use in all of my Volvo cars.

 

i cleaned the oxygen sensor and that helped a lot. the sparkplugs are like 8 months old, they look good when checked, but i recently did an ignition coil. upgraded to the MSD and replaced the NGK platinum that i normally use for the volvo ones. my motors been running smooth for a good while now. also just for anyones curiosity there was a pretty bad leak in my filler cap that was getting all over everything. once that was fixed she seemed much happier too. also as for when i cleaned the oxygen sensor went about 300 miles and had a very minor misfire episode. only been a couple hundred miles since the other new parts so still seeing how that works.