I have a 2012 XC60 with 240k miles on it. I've been the only owner and keep up on the maintenance. It's been a breeze to own but recently it started having intermittent issues...

• The steering wheel shakes and seems to pull (yank/tug) to the right. The other day the entire car started shaking/vibrating very intensely on the interstate (like very bad turbulence) so I slowed down to 50-60mph and the shaking stopped after about 20 seconds. Only experienced occasional mild vibrations since.
• There is also a clunking/clicking sound that seems to be coming from the front driver side. Initially, the sound really only happened during acceleration and seemed to be correlated with the car’s rpms but recently it occurred during coasting and NOT while under load.
• Sometimes there are rattles or clunks from the front driver's side while turning. Those sounds remind me of a bad axle/CV joint but the other issues sound and feel different.
• The problems are intermittent and vary in intensity.
  • Sometimes there is only the clunking/clicking sound and no steering wheel shake, sometimes the steering wheel shakes but there is no sound and sometimes both happen.
  • I can go days without it happening and then it starts back up. It doesn't matter if I've been driving for a while or just pulling out of my driveway. ANY of the issues can happen at ANY speed (10mph - 80mph). There is no consistency.
• The brakes feel fine.
• Shifting sometimes feels a little clunky or slow but that could be in my head.
• Steering can be stiff. Before this all started happening I thought it was loosing it's power steering.

What I've done so far:

• We first had the tires rotated and aligned. The car drove well for about 150 miles and then the issues returned.
• The break pads and rotors were replaced about 45,000 miles ago.
• I had the struts and mounts replaced about 28,000 miles ago (November 2019). We had the front driver's side CV joint replaced at the same time because the car was shaking and clunking through turns. Replacing the CV joint was an ordeal...See below.
  • We bought a new axle from the Volvo service shop for $692.02 and had a local mechanic (with a good reputation) do the work. I hoped their labor rate would be less than Volvo plus their proximity to me was convenient.
  • The inboard shaft was seized in the transmission, presumably rusted. The mechanic couldn't break it free and needed to take the outboard CV joint and join it with the existing inner CV. Hopefully I explained that correctly.
• I recently took the car back to the shop who replaced the CV joint last year. They thought the issue was the CV joint and suggested we take it to Volvo - evidentially they rarely suggest that but this is a unique case.
• I took it to another good shop who specializes in transmission and they couldn't get the old axel out either. I left the car with them for a week to drive because they wanted to hear and feel it but it didn't act up too much. They inspected the car but couldn't find any glaring issues but suspected the CV joint.

Volvo said the axel they sold us is under warranty so I'm planning on getting a new one from them and an estimate on the labor cost to replace it. I don't want to sink money into a car that isn't worth it but there could still be a lot of life left in the old guy.

Has anyone else experienced these issues? Can I replace the CV joint like last time or is that a very bad idea? If it's not the CV joint what is it?

Thanks!

 

It's sounds as if one of the repairs was not done correctly.