I've been driving my '98 V70 for a little under two years now and have been entirely satisfied.
We have had to do a few parts replacements due to normal life time wear.

However, recently I've been having some issues.

1) There is a persistent whine coming from the passengers side of the hood while driving. It is not affected by engaging the gas pedal, but does get more intense as the car speeds up, even when coasting.

2) When the car is idling there is a ticking noise that didn't used to be there.
The "tick" happens about every 5-10 seconds and accompanies a slight change in how the engine as a whole sounds. When the hood is open the noise seems to be coming from the visible belts in the left side of the engine compartment, near the power steering reservoir.

3) The coolant and engine oil levels are not lasting as long as they should be.

4) About 10 times in the past two months the car has been reluctant to start. We just had the battery replaced and it's not making the tell-tale noises (I've had alot of dead battery experiences). The car makes a very quiet almost wooshing noise, as if the engine is trying to catch but is missing a component. Only once did it start and then immediately die and start back up again.


My knowledge of cars is slightly better than most young women and their first vehicles however, it is still pretty basic. I know that all of these things (along with the rather broad descriptions) are very general I am hoping that it might be something obvious to a well-versed car lover.

Any ideas or advice helps!
(Even if it is just "go ahead and take it to the mechanic" )

Thanks so much!!

 

That first noise sounds like a wheel bearing. They make a whine/whirr/roar kind of a sound. Speed related. Sometimes, though, you can have a one noisy tire, and that can be hard to distinguish from the bearing.

The second noise is probably the a/c compressor turning on and off. That sounds totally normal.

Number 3 sounds like bad news. The first thing to check is whether there is water in the oil or oil in the water, as occurs with a blown head gasket. Let's hope it's not that. Then, you want to check to see if the heater core is leaking. It is very common for a volvo to leak from the heater core. The heater core is really easy to get to on these cars, compared to about any other, and you need to get right on that if it's leaking. These cars do not like to get low on water. One episode of overheating and it'll probably be off to the junkyard. Finally, the source of the oil leak should be evident on the ground. Often they're hard to trace back to the origin. Look up some threads here on PCV service on the 850. The volvos have a very strange crankcase ventilation system that a lot of people would probably not know to service. If you don't want it to use oil it helps to keep that serviced.

The 4th problem, well, that requires quality diagnostics. Most people, even some mechanics, don't bother, and just subject any mechanical problem to a shotgun blast of random parts or random worrying with no action. I suggest starting a separate thread on that and be very careful not to get off topic. It might take you six months to figure it out if you're going to try to do diagnosis by internet (not easy).

 

The second sounds like it is the actuator hiccuping, I picked up a used one on Ebay for $15 and it solved my issue.

Check out this Youtube video and see if your sounds like this, you can also see the part # MR146