Hello all,

I just bought a 1998 S70 with 215k miles on it. It has a lot of service records dating back to 2002 that include AC and fuel pump/filters and such. I have always liked Volvo (pre-Ford) and my buddy seems to have good luck with his older 240. I have a BMW and have had several BMWs in the past so working on my own stuff is nothing new. I prefer to work on my own stuff since I will know it's right. This is my first Volvo and I like it already.

After reading thru the DIY/newb threads, I have a few questions.

I need struts up front because it clunks when I go over a bump. This is something I plan on doing regardless of the condition because of the mileage. After looking on Amazon and other parts Web sites, it seems the front struts are the same on both sides?? This true because it is confusing me.

The rears are going to be replaced as well. I have read that there are different suspension types (regular and the other began with an 'N'). I need some help on this as well. My car is the base model if that helps.

I do plan on replacing other suspension parts soon funds permitting.

The brakes also work great on the car. The rear brakes makes a high pitched noise when I apply the brakes though. Also, the parking brake does not work, when I pull up on the lever, it pulls up freely. Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated.

What offset are the rims? I have 15" rims with hub caps and was looking at getting new OEM rims for it that were 17" to help it look better. I recently bought Lexus OEM rims for my older Lexus ES300 and the offset was off by 5mm so it rubbed the strut housing. Just wondering on this. I probably missed it in the DIY section.

The locks in the car all act weird. I could not really find a good thread on this. If I unlock the driver side, the passenger side will not unlock and it takes a few tries to get the driver side to unlock. It's annoying to be honest. Anything that could fix this? I do not keep anything valuable in the car so I leave it unlocked for now.

There are a few other things that are wrong with it that I can deal with that I found info on in the DIY threads from the S70/850 links. There's a lot of good info on this site.

Thank you.

 

Hi and welcome to VolvoForums.

The front struts are the same. The rears are normal shocks. Not sure about wheel offset but if you do one word searches you will likely find what you need, like "offset".

The door lock latches are old and have some kind of overheat protection chip in them that gets weak and stops them from working properly. You can pull the latch, open the motor, remove the chip and install a solid piece of copper to carry the current and they'll work forever. The motor just wont have it's overheat protection.

 

http://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/for...246755#p246755

Door lock problems.

 

I found the wheel offsets by going to tire rack. I replaced the brakes on all four wheels because the fronts were pretty much shot and the rears squealed very bad. I inspected the timing belt and found that it was in good shape but the water pump is leaking a little. I still plan on changing the timing belt when I do the water pump.

I'll post pics soon.

 

When I had the Struts done on a 2000 S70 GLT, it turned out that the Spring Seats were in way worse shape than the Strut mounts.