Hi all. I just recently bought a 98 S70 t5 for my fiance after she fell in love with my mom's '99 (s70 t5).

It's been nothing but a hassle. Ugh. I purchased it from a fairly reputable volvo service center, that has started to sell used volvos too. I figured since they had a pretty good reputation on every review site I could find on the internet (with the few bad apples thrown in) and since they deal exclusively with volvos they should know them in and out.

Anyway, I bought it just over 3 weeks ago and it's been in and out of his shop 4 times for various things already. After this last round in the shop on monday, the guy wants almost $900 to chase down and fix the problems its having. I'm pretty pissed as the price he sold it to me at would imply a vehicle in good working condition, which it's clearly not. But buyer beware I guess. I definitely should have had it checked out by a third party before I bought it, but that's too late. So yesterday just for kicks I took it to another volvo specialist in the area and had them give it a "pre-purchase inspection". They found almost $3000 worth of stuff it needs done!!!! Arrrrgghhh! Most of that is cosmetic stuff that I'm not overly concerned with, but some of it is fairly major.

Seems like a lot of it is common stuff... broken motor mounts, broken front upper spring mounts, large leak in the evap circuit, window switches that don't work, etc.

So anyway, on to the reason I'm posting here. There's a couple of things on the list that I'd like to tackle myself but I'm not seeing much info on it when I look.

First it has two codes in the computer: ECM-414 In-car temperature sensor and ECM-611 Permanent Large Evaporative Leak.

The check engine light comes on consistently when the gas gauge is one mark above the 6 on the gauge. When I check it with my code scanner it's P0445, which my scanner lists as "Evap Circuit Leak (large)", but when I look up online says it's "Evaporative Emission Control System Purge Control Valve Circuit Shorted". The second shop wants almost $100 to smoke test the evap circuit and find the leak. Is it fairly common for the purge valves to go bad on these? Would I be further ahead to just buy a new purge valve and replace it myself in hopes that that's it?

Second, I can't find any information on the in-car temp sensor. Where is this located and is it something that I could do myself?

Third, the gear shift **** (automatic) is broken and hard to get into park sometimes because the button won't pop back out. The dealer wants $120 to replace it, but it seems like I can get a $60 replacement and pop it on myself right? It just pops on and off doesn't it?

Fourth: the second shop said the right motor mount was "flat" whatever that means. From what I can tell this is just a regular rubber mount right? Shouldn't be too hard to change. He also said something about the lower mounts were hydraulic and were low and might need to be replaced soon. But I can't find any information on these. Can someone point me in the right direction on replacing these?

Fifth: The passenger front window would roll down but not up with the passenger switch, the driver's side controlled it just fine. So when I took it back to the dealer on monday to address that and other issues he tried to clean the switches, now neither of them will move the window. Grrr. At least it's rolled up. He wants $250 to replace both switches. I told him to pound sand. No question here I guess just venting.

And finally, sixth. The passenger front door will still open even when the doors are locked. The lock **** goes up and down, but the lock does not engage. The deal on monday said it needed a part, but I can't remember what he said I was so pissed about all the other crap. The other volvo guy wants $95 just to take off the door panel and diagnose it, then parts and labor to fix it on top of that. Is there a common part that breaks on these? Is it hard to pull the panel (any instructions around?) and diagnose this myself?

Thanks tons guys. You've already saved me a ton of money I would have wasted at the POS dealer. That a-hole isn't getting another dime of my money, and while I'm not the type to sue anyone, I'm actually thinking of taking this guy to small claims court for this.

 

crap, sorry, one other thing I forgot. It's had an intermittent miss since the day after I bought it (convenient huh?). Well actually it started doing it on the test drive, but it was WAY low on gas and after filling it up it went away, so we just thought it was starving for gas.

Anyway, there are no codes or pending codes for it. But every once in a while it will "hiccup". It's especially noticeable when sitting at a stop light but it will do it when driving too, you just can't feel it as much. Took it back to the dealer and he said it was a bad cap and rotor, and replaced them (at my expense, thanks!). It was ok for a couple days but then started doing it again and now (two weeks later) it's getting pretty bad again. On my daily 45 minute commute it'll do it probably 4 or 5 times. On monday the dealer said he's not really sure what to do since there's no code, but for $120 he'll replace the spark plugs with new volvo ones. Even though the ones that are in there are volvo and they show a good burn pattern.

I read something about the purge valve might cause bad idle, but this also does it at speed, so I'm not sure what the deal is or where to go from here. Any ideas on what to check, or should I just get some new spark plugs and change them out myself and see what that does?

Thanks again!

 

Gosh, one more thing I forgot!!!!

The second volvo service guy said it's missing an "air guide". He wants $175 to put a new one in. I haven't been able to find any info on this. I'm guessing this is supposed to be a tube that goes from the front grill area to direct cold air to the air filter box? But I haven't had a chance to look under the hood yet. I really need to get this one side by side with my mom's and look at what might be missing.

 

WOW

I hope you got the car at a great price.

 

That's the kicker... it was a good (but not great) price for a car in GOOD condition, about $200 less than Kelly Blue Book retail for a "Excellent" condition car. It was a ****ty price for a car in this condition.

What makes me the most mad, is by selling the car at that price, the dealer was representing that this car should be reasonably close to the KBB definition of "Excellent Condition" or at least "Good Condition"

As it is, the vehicle is closer to "Fair Condition" which makes it worth roughly HALF of what I paid for it.

So, I think that all these mechanical problems should be his problem to fix, as he was representing a vehicle condition without major mechanical problems. The car is obviously not in that state, so I feel he should make it that way at little or no cost to me. However he says not gonna happen. He'll give me 10% off the repair bill, but he gives that to everyone that buys a car from him. Not acceptable in my book. In my way of thinking, I'd be happy to split the bill with him. I'll pay half of his parts cost and half of his actual labor cost (not the book value) and I think that's being pretty generous on my end. But I haven't talked to him about it yet, since I'm not to a point yet where I can be calm enough to talk reasonably with him. And I want to do my research to see what these things actually entail.