I have owned this car for nearly four years now. I bought it with 45K miles and it now has over 118K miles. The car has left me on the side of the road a few times, i have changed every bulb in it at least 4 times now, 1 heater core, and some other minor issues that were covered under warranty (thank goodness for volvo certified). The timing belt has been changed and the tranny flushed. I just put in the 3rd upper engine mount with the IPD Poly and love it so far.

Are there any other major services that I should be aware of?

I'm wondering how hard it is to check/change the lower torque arm/engine mounts? The guy at IPD said that may be causing the premature failure of the upper mount.

The check engine light recently started coming on. I thought i had it fixed with a vacuum tube not being to tight, but it eventually came back on. The gas cap gasket appears to be in decent condition (does have some cracking towards the outside of the gasket). What specific vacuum lines commonly cause this?

The rear speakers do not sound well at all. I'm assuming they should sound like the front when i change to the rear? It sounds like they are blown or something, but trust me i'm not big on loud music.....

I have asked myself many many times why not just get of the car? I'm not sure how to explain it other than I really like driving my Lazy Boy with Twin Turbos that has a mind of it's own!

 

The lower torque mount is a breeze, I have both the upper and lower poly IDP mounts and love them. I agree a shot lower will wear the upper quick. Let me know what you find out about the vacuum leak. My CEL is on too and I replaced the gas cap with no luck

 

actually, my lower is as good as dead and I found it puts more pressure on the nuts holding the upper in place, thus causing them to loosen quickly, by extention, speeding up the wear of the upper (poly in my case) mount..
I don't really think the IPD mount is any better than any other poly mount, but just happens to look better with the "slotted" design instead of holes...

I have to change that lower but have no idea of the procedure.. can I change the bushing without actually doing the mount?

 

There isn't much to the procedure at all. A couple nuts and its off then swap in the new one. I bought a new mount from IDP so the whole process took about 10 mins tops. If you get under the car you can see it, it's right on the bottom easiest mount I've ever changed out!

http://www.ipdusa.com/Volvo-S80-1999...p-76-634-2182/

 

Took the advice and replaced both the upper and lower mounts with the Polymer version from IPD and really like the results. The shifts (my slippage between 2 and 3 disappeared) are better and the vibration at idle is not that bad. I am happy with the IPD stuff, but wish they had some of the fun stuff for my T6. Looking at stage 0 I wonder how in the world do you get the intercooler out of there to clean it?