Hello,

I have a 1999 v70 XC volvo and I have been putting a ton of miles on it lately. I bought it with around 176,000 and now I have 200,000 (The reason for this is beciase I have been driving from California to Missouri a couple times). Anyways, I drove from California to Missouri at the beginning of May and there wasnt any problems with the car the whole 2,000 miles. When I got home, however, it started to have a little metal rattling noise coming from the front of the car. I recently had a Main Catalyst Below Threshold code so I figured it might be the heat shield from the catalytic converter, but as I drove back to California, the issue intensified. It is now an extremely annoying rattle. The rattle sounds like a tin can is being hit with a spoon and it follows an oscillatory pattern (ie it rattling more when I am going faster and less when I am going slower).

What I have noticed about the occurance:

1. It does not rattle when in park or nuetral with the engine is idling or being reved.
2. It begins to rattle when I accelerate but rattles significantly more when I decelerate.
3. It rattles more in the second gears when I am traveling around 20-35 mph.
4. It rattles much more when I turn and especially when I make sharp turns.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what it could be? Anyone have a similar problem before?

 

I will bet it is the driveshaft that goes from the angle gear to the rear diff.

 

Could it be a CV joint since it is more pronounced when I decelerate and when I turn?

 

Possible but the driveshafts are more common for that problem.

 

What could I do to pinpoint the drive shaft as the problem?

 

Remove the driveshaft and drive it and see if the problem is gone.

 

So I finally gave up and took it into a local volvo mechanic. They said that it was the drive shaft CV joint assembly at the transmission. Pay a hefty price though, but it seems to be working great. No rattling.

 

I would have just removed the driveshaft and called it a day. There are lots of AWD V70's that are now FWD V70's due to frugal owners. Supposedly there is a slight gain in MPG as well, but not much.