A buddy of mine is looking into buying an 02 or 04 S40 1.8T I cant remember which one it is. I was wondering if they have any problems like the 99-00 S80 and they're **** transmissions. Let me know!

 

Some common problems I've run across here and on my car (which brought me here...)

1. Soft metal rotors which wear deep grooves quickly (mine were deep at 31k miles).
2. Soft pads which wear out quickly and leave lots of dust (stop very well though).
3. Headlights and tailights which burn out often (replaced mine 5 times in 100k miles).
4. Leaking turbo oil return line at the o-ring where it enters the block (once).
5. Hard starting when the fuel pressure regulator fails (once).
6. Ignition misfire under acceleration due to bad Coil-on-plugs (2).
7. Need new timing belt, tensioner, and water pump at 100k miles (Volvo recommended, good idea too, cheap if you do it yourself).
8. Thermostat bad causing check engine light (once, easy fix DIY).
9. Blower motor resistor failed (once, due to clogged cabin filter blocking airflow)
10. Auto climate control sometimes acts funny - still have not figured it out. Manual works.

This may sound like allot, but I am very happy with the car. It gets 34mpg, runs strong, stops fast, and looks good. I do all my own work so these are really little things to me. The good thing is most everything that will go wrong has already occured to someone here. Some very smart folks here will be glad to help if any problems occur.

 

Cool man i'll pass that on. Its a 4cyl right?

I wish my S80 got 34mpg, ha!

 

lol, 34 mpg is nice. One other thing, the car has a 16 gallon tank but shows empty at ~10 gallons. One fix was to bend the float arm in the tank but most just live with it.

It is a nice little 4 banger in the 2000-2004.5 and a 5 cylinder in the 2004.5 and up.