My wife's 2002 S40 broke the passenger swaybar bracket. My search of the postings confirmed that the front subframe would have to be lowered to access the bolts but I couldn't find a specific listing of the complete procedure. I have never dropped the subframe but have worked on cars for decades, how hard could it be???? Apparently harder than I thought. I worked for about 4 hours and never got the subframe to drop far enough to access the bolts. Did I remove all the necessary bolts?

I removed the 2 bolts that go into the chassis that are accessed through lower a-arms, the 4 bolts, 2 each on the rear bushings for the lower a-arms, the 4 bolts that hold the steering rack, 4 bolts for the cradle that runs fore and aft that holds the lower motor mounts, and lastly, even the 3 bolts at the top of the struts. I also disconnected the end links and removed any heat shields that got in the way.
After all of this I was able to get a bar under the subframe and pull it down but only about an inch. Certainly not enough to access the bushing bolts that need to be changed.
In the end I put everything back together (very frustrating) and will try it again next weekend.

Can anybody tell me where I went wrong? I looked everywhere and couldn't figure out were it was hanging up. What did I do wrong?

 

I did it without lowering the cradle. My hands are medium size though and it was tight. I would have paid money for another inch of space.

 

I am having this same problem. Did you find a way to lower the sub frame?

 

Funny that I just re-tackled this problem last weekend. It took me about 6 hours but I got the job done.
For some reason the cradle did drop down quite a bit more to allow me to do the job. I think the only thing that I did differently is that I completely removed the central engine cradle that runs from the front to rear part of the engine compartment and holds the front and rear motor mounts. I don't remember if I completely removed it last time or simply unbolted it front and rear. So just be sure to unbolt the steering rack, the two long bolts that are accessed through the holes in the lower a-arms that hold the subframe in and the rear bushings for the lower a-arms. Get all of this undone and grab some pry bars to create some space to work. I also used blocks of wood to hold the gaps to allow me to work.
It is a pain in the @ss and I cursed the Volvo engineers that came up with this brilliant bit of engineering but it can be done. It only took 5 1/2 hours longer than any other car I have ever worked on.

 

I supplied my Volvo guy the parts and he charged 200. for the labor........poorly designed imo.