Daughter Has 99 S80
 

My daughter has a 99 S80 T6 that she got a real good deal on about a year ago. She works at a BMW, VW, Range Rover and some reall expensive cars dealership. She bought the Volvo across the street at a Mercedes dealership. I thought they gave her a deal because she worked at the other dealership. Anyway she has had nothing but trouble with this car from the very start. It's a beautiful car and she fell in love with it and could not pass up the deal, and I have had such good luck with Vovlo's she thought they were all great. Now she wants to get rid of it. The Volvo dealership has really treated her great and are going to try and see what they can do for her. Has anybody had anything good to say about the 99 S80? Are they all this much trouble or did she just get a lemon? I can't even beging to name all the problems she has had. Anybdody want to buy a really good looking S80 with only 50K miles?

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

I think she just got a bad one.
It must have been neglected from the previous owner.

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

Jim,

I have a 99 S80 T6 as well and can empathize with your daughter. In what I thought was a good deal at the time (73K miles for 10K), has turned out to be a major money pit. I will admit that the car was in need of some TLC when I purchased it, but I didn't realize to what extent. After replacing the front rotors and all pads, throttle body, O2 sensors, motor mounts, battery, radiator fan (under recall), and tires (car had 245s on them don't know why), my car is in top running condition....for now. Good luck, Gonzo

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

She had all that done and more. Then she was driving home from work yesterday and the car just totally quit on her. Luckily she was right in front of the Volvo dealership and she coasted in the lot. They pushed the car into the garage. She may never drive it away. The problems she has had are not neglect type things either. The problem before this one was that something in the cooling system broke and put coolant all over the inside of the car. Had to replace the carpet and the mats in he front. The dealer did not charge her a cent though. Matter of fact he gave her $50 as a gift for getting engaged. They hardly ever charge her very much for anything. Then the next morning she will take them a batch of homemade cookies and everybody is happy. I think the fact that they fix so much w/o a charge is the reason she has kept it as long as she has, but she says it has never not been in the shop for a month straight since she got the car about 18 months ago. The car is so nice looking too. It's that light blue color with the dark grey interior, and it's fast and rides really good. I think maybe we should just paint it yellow though. (The color of a lemon.)

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

Sorry to hear about so much trouble.

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

LOL about the yellow paint! You're absolutely right about this model being so astethically pleasing. I just wish it didn't have so many issues. Hopefully Volvo will make a recall on something and refund some money back...wishful thinking.

Gonzo

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

Turns out the problem is the alternator this time. They want more than $500 to replace. Does that sound reasonable? I can buy one over the internet for about $300. How much work can it be to put on an alternator?

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

If you can work on car its not that bad.
Should take between an hour to an hour and a half.
Remove the upper rad hose.
Remove the steering pump will lines attached and move it towards the left side of the car.
Then loosen the screws for the alt. (Note: you will have to remove the 2 upper screws on the A/C compressor and loosen the 2 lower ones to slide the Alt. out.

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

Oh dear !!! I have had my 2001 S80 T6 for two weeks and only found this site because I was told that the car’s o2 sensors had to be replaced and couldn’t believe the price (USD1000 “fitted” in South Africa), so decided to find out a little more about the car.

Perhaps I should leave it my garage where it looks good and dig out the trusted Land Cruiser with over 200k on the clock and still going strong. Though I suppose there must be thousands of S80’s out there that are also going strong, this site is only going to attract those folk experiencing problems……please tell me this is true Tech :)

I was encouraged by Tech’s comment that the problems you experienced where not the norm and probably due to the previous owners misuse…so am going to hold onto mine for a bit longer.

How long does it take to fit the two forward o2 sensors, is it something I could do with a modified socket ?

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

You should be able to do it your self in an hour or two.
You will have to drop the back half of the exhaust to be able to reach the front O2's.
You might be able to get to them with a wrench once you let the front half of the exhaust hang down.
If not the sockets aren't that expensive to buy.

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

After all the problems that I have been experiencing with my 1999 Volvo S80 I will never buy another one. I was told by the service department that I bought the car the first year out so this is why I am having all the problems. My preivous car was a 1986 Toyota Celica which I paid $9,000. The most I spent on it was for tires. The volvo S80 looks good but not worth all the problems.

My radio stopped working. It is going to cost me $850 to get fixed. It is some control unit.

RE: Daughter Has 99 S80
 

She finally got her car back last Friday with a new alternator. We have looked for another car for her while hers was in the shop, but it would cost at least $20K for a car any where near as nice as the one she has. She paid $13,500 for it 1.5 years ago and she could still probably get $12K for it today on a trade. But on a trade means buying a more expensive car which is not what she wants to do since they just bought their first house. She's going to try to keep it for at least a little longer. She just really likes this car and does not care for the newer models of the Vovlo that much. Not quite ready for a wagon yet, but maybe once they have a kid that might change.