I need your help. I just bought a 2001 volvo s60 T5 on kijiji toronto. I paid $2500 for a green sedan with 195000 km. It had been serviced at volvo and was a single owner car. Everything works on it and it runs great.

When i registered the car it came up as havine 450,000 km ) in 2011! The car had four previous owners and hadnt passed an emission test since 2010!

I never got the used vehicle package which would have prevented me from making this mistake. I should have known better but i have no recourse now.

I took it in for a safety and an etest. Amazingly it passed the etest but needed $2000 in suspension work.

Front inner and outer tie rod ends, front and rear swaybar links and front brake pads and rotors. $800 worth of parts and i have a busy weekend ahead of me with the install.

I want to squeak as much value out of this car as possible. Once I pass safety, what is the next thing I should tackle. I don't know a lot about Volvos, but i am a capable home mechanic. I've rebuilt the engine (air cooled) on my 71 VW Bus with great success.

This car is meant as a city car for my wife with a short(10k) commute. I want it to last 2 years.

Thanks for your help

 

I would not call it a lemon, you just got ripped off. I always recommend people do a car history check before buying it, no matter the price.

Should not be hard to squeeze 2 years out of it.

 

You are right, of course, feel pretty dumb. But thanks for the encouragement. I spent all of yesterday freezing in the garage. I have the left front almost done, today i tackle the right.
m

 

Take the car for a good long 20 minute drive. Then come back and park it in the garage with the door closed. It will warm the garage about 20 degrees.

 

Too bad you got a raw deal. And that sucks about the extra expenses. While I love my S60 but these cars have their issues when they get up there in mileage.

I will say one thing though. If you have the correct tools those jobs aren't too bad. Rotors and pads are pretty straight forward. The end links you pretty much just need metric wrenches and if they are original Volvo they have that weird thing were you have to fill Allen wrenches in the end while you take the nuts off. Just make sure the car is jacked up evenly on both sides when you are dealing with suspension.

After becoming a DIY person myself over the last few years. If I even purchase another car over with over 100,000 miles (roughly 161,000 kilometers). Personally I wouldn't buy a car without at least getting it up on a ramp and looking at as much of the suspension as possible. The bushings in the control arms, transmission mount, motor mount. Because all the stuff start to fail after a while. The control arm replacement is probably on the worst jobs especially on a S60. Any other issues with transmission slipping or grinding, engine issues you can normally at least get an idea about on a test drive.

I will say one other thing too I didn't realize it at the time and thankfully I was convinced to avoid it at the time. But whenever you go for a Turbo vehicle it can require extra work that a non-turbo would not.

 

Thanks for your encouragement. i did all the necessary repairs and got it safetied and on the road.
After the first week i got a big vibration in the front end. I jacked up the vehicle and the passenger drive shaft had an enormous amount of slop.
I got the shaft out in record time, as i had already pulled that area apart a week before. The shaft fell apart in my hands. The three bearings in the shaft connection(the box) had disintegrated! Minutes away from failure.
i got a used shaft from volvo boys in toronto for 90$ installed it and am back on the road.

Next job, timing belt and tensioner when it gets warmer.

Because this car has no real future, I'm doing all the minimal maintenance work on it myself. I wont pay $900 to replace belt at a shop, so i'm budgeting $250 for parts and doing it myself.

Wish me luck!

 

Not sure how many Miles/Kilos you have on the car. But definitely as these cars get older. They become DIY projects. Kinda fun though. Two years ago I barely know what a spark plug was. Now I have done Control Arms, Actuators in the doors, oil changes, spark plugs, brake pads and rotors. Not exactly a master mechanic but now I have learned so much just reading forums like this and watching videos on youtube and other sites.

There is a great video by FCPEURO on doing the Timing Belt and Seprentine Belt.

Depending on how many miles the car has and last time the Timing belt was changed the Water Pump might be something to do as well. From what I understand most people change them every other time they do the Timing Belt.

 

the car had 450k km the last time it was recorded in 2011! The seller rolled the odometer back to 200k.

I have watched the tming belt video 3 times. Very helpful, but i am a little unclear about which way to rotate the tensioner before install.

Also, he takes great pains to line up the timing marks and then puts an impact driver on the crank pulley! Wouldnt that rotate the engine?

m

 

No a side note, RSPI, I dig your videos man. I love the rims you're rockin on that 850 and I really dig your hat in this vid too. I'm not a fan of the steelers, but I'm definitely a fan of Pittsburgh! Lived there for four years.

On the note at hand note, good luck man. Good thing is, its a volvo! It'll run forever!

 

I agree you have very good videos. The checklist on this one is very good. Even if you are someone who ignores the factory recommendations. I think your video there could help the average car owner identify the most urgent repairs.