Volvo XC70 D5 - yet more comfy bargeness
Discussion
Since the MOT last month the XC70 has covered 2k miles courtesy of a couple of round trips to Exeter, a weekend in Lincolnshire and the past week spent in Wales yomping around the west coast of Snowdonia. It appears that all the work on the mechanicals is paying dividends as it continues to have an imperious feeling of reliability and indestructiveness that elevated it from winter/tip run car in the first few months of ownership.
Added rear parking sensors today - something that'd been on the To Do list since buying the car and had the kit on the shelf but got kicked in to gear when I saw Accelerbrate's thread.
Pretty straightforward job - the P2 doesn't have the holes premarked for fitting them in the bumper but Volvo publish a guide online with dimensions. I went a bit off-piste, fitting them where I thought they'd be most effective + slightly quieter on the eyes.
Guide here for ref: https://accessories.volvocars.com/nl-nl/Installati...
Took the opportunity to give the rear valance and boot floor a good scrub and check for any corrosion or signs of any previous accident damage - none.
Got it back together to check the operation of the kit and will finish the tidying of the wiring/install tomorrow - didn't want to miss the Rugby today!
Pretty straightforward job - the P2 doesn't have the holes premarked for fitting them in the bumper but Volvo publish a guide online with dimensions. I went a bit off-piste, fitting them where I thought they'd be most effective + slightly quieter on the eyes.
Guide here for ref: https://accessories.volvocars.com/nl-nl/Installati...
Took the opportunity to give the rear valance and boot floor a good scrub and check for any corrosion or signs of any previous accident damage - none.
Got it back together to check the operation of the kit and will finish the tidying of the wiring/install tomorrow - didn't want to miss the Rugby today!
O/S/R lower light cluster was starting to look scabby and letting down the side - it had started collecting water in the lower (reverse) light and the silver reflector had corroded.
Closer inspection showed it had a hole in the lenses with a red sticker over:
Like everything else in 2021 these appear to have become a commodity, with good condition s/h ones fetching an arm and a leg. I kept an eye out and picked one up earlier in the summer at a price I was happy with:
Fitted, much better.
Closer inspection showed it had a hole in the lenses with a red sticker over:
Like everything else in 2021 these appear to have become a commodity, with good condition s/h ones fetching an arm and a leg. I kept an eye out and picked one up earlier in the summer at a price I was happy with:
Fitted, much better.
Despite being well specced (cruise, climate, power folding mirrors, etc) the Volvo doesn't have heated seats and the girlfriend was complaining of a cold bum on cold mornings. So I fitted a heated seat kit (<£20 off eBay):
Seat out -
Then followed this thread on the Owners Club to strip down the seat and install the heated mats https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=19...
The ramps double up as a great workbench for projects like this:
Lower base cover off:
The kit! Quite comprehensive with 2x mats, wiring, relay and button:
Installation of mats involving laying out on to foam, tucking in to creases and cutting small slots to allow the leather cover to clip back in to the fasteners in the grooves of the foam:
Base was a cinch, seatback a bit more involved but still pretty straightforward:
The mats are sticky on one side so fit securely to the foam + the seat cover sandwiches it in place.
I wanted the switch up on centre console so pulled it apart to get an ignition switched power supply (seats are 7.5A supply) and feed button through:
And voila! The seats are two stage - the button is a toggle to give low power or high. They work very well, heating up in a minute or so.
The car continues to be a delight to work on and maintain - everything comes apart with ease and goes back together as if new. The quality of the materials and fixings/fasteners is outstanding.
I'll install a passenger's side kit at some point in the future, for now this should keep her happy as she drives the car the most.
And somehow we're still racking up ~2k miles/month so it was filthy. Quick wash will do:
Not too shabby for ~185k miles and 16 yrs old.
Seat out -
Then followed this thread on the Owners Club to strip down the seat and install the heated mats https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=19...
The ramps double up as a great workbench for projects like this:
Lower base cover off:
The kit! Quite comprehensive with 2x mats, wiring, relay and button:
Installation of mats involving laying out on to foam, tucking in to creases and cutting small slots to allow the leather cover to clip back in to the fasteners in the grooves of the foam:
Base was a cinch, seatback a bit more involved but still pretty straightforward:
The mats are sticky on one side so fit securely to the foam + the seat cover sandwiches it in place.
I wanted the switch up on centre console so pulled it apart to get an ignition switched power supply (seats are 7.5A supply) and feed button through:
And voila! The seats are two stage - the button is a toggle to give low power or high. They work very well, heating up in a minute or so.
The car continues to be a delight to work on and maintain - everything comes apart with ease and goes back together as if new. The quality of the materials and fixings/fasteners is outstanding.
I'll install a passenger's side kit at some point in the future, for now this should keep her happy as she drives the car the most.
And somehow we're still racking up ~2k miles/month so it was filthy. Quick wash will do:
Not too shabby for ~185k miles and 16 yrs old.
Good work as always. I put a similar looking set of eBay heater pads into a bucket seat that I use in my MX5 and connected them up to the factory seat heater wiring. They work great and get hotter than the original seats. I keep meaning to buy another set to combine with a drill battery and a coat for chilly walks 
TurboRob said:
And a stripdown/clean/regrease of the indicator stalk mechanism as the Girlf reported she couldn't find high beam. Lovely made assembly that comes out in 2 mins (a few torx screws hold steering column cowling on, then two screws hold this in it's receptacle on the column):
All it needed was a quick wipe of the tracks you can see on the PCB below:
And voila, all is good in Volvo column stalk land. Onwards and upwards.
The indicator stalk that I cleaned-up and fixed last summer returned to being a bit crap for flicking high beam on/off so replaced for a s/h item off a low mileage '06 XC70 from a breaker in Southampton. Literally replaced in the time it took to boil the kettle:All it needed was a quick wipe of the tracks you can see on the PCB below:
And voila, all is good in Volvo column stalk land. Onwards and upwards.
Normal service is resumed.
The girlf returned from a longer journey in the car saying something smelled hot/she occasionally got an absestosy whiff. I thought all the calipers were recent but it turned out the nearside rear was the last original and had become sticky (decent innings at ~185k miles).
In on the ramps for a couple of hours, to change with a refurbed caliper from Brakes Int.
I can get a good brake pedal from the off by minimising fluid loss across the change (clamping flexy) and then allowing gravity to do it's work by leaving the nipple loose on the caliper for 5-10 mins whilst I tighten everything else up. Tapping the caliper gently helps too. These help to minimise bleeding but this time I decided to revive an old Eezibleed kit from wayback when (probably as old as the car) and bleed all four corners/refresh the fluid in all circuits.
With a good seal to the master cylinder and on the top of the bottle, plus hooked up to a spare wheel/tyre at a pressure of your choice, these really are a great, cheap bit of kit.
In on the ramps for a couple of hours, to change with a refurbed caliper from Brakes Int.
I can get a good brake pedal from the off by minimising fluid loss across the change (clamping flexy) and then allowing gravity to do it's work by leaving the nipple loose on the caliper for 5-10 mins whilst I tighten everything else up. Tapping the caliper gently helps too. These help to minimise bleeding but this time I decided to revive an old Eezibleed kit from wayback when (probably as old as the car) and bleed all four corners/refresh the fluid in all circuits.
With a good seal to the master cylinder and on the top of the bottle, plus hooked up to a spare wheel/tyre at a pressure of your choice, these really are a great, cheap bit of kit.
Two Years In
This month is two years since buying a cheap P2 XC70 as a winter runabout/house mover/tip run car. In that time it's become the most popular car in the house for hacking around in and has covered 25k miles, despite all the covid lockdowns and restrictions.
It's popularity and consumption of miles meant I decided to keep on top of maintenance, and refresh worn out parts where required. I've kept a record of these mainly on this thread, but also the costs offline which I thought might be interesting to share.
All these are parts cost only as I do the work myself.
Servicing (parts required/worn out/at end of life)
2 x 'basic' services (oil changes, filters, etc) - it's about £80 a time for the bits, so £160 total.
Aux belt and tensioner, £80
Rear brakes, £90
Front brakes, £80
Rr droplinks, £40
O/S/F wheel bearing, £35
3 x brake calipers, £190
Tyres, £430
Total ~£1100
Servicing (optional bits; could've left if just running as shed)
2 x 'additional' services (oil changes, filters, etc) - it's about £80 a time for the bits, so £160 total.
Front suspension, £340
3 x engine mounts, £140
Front undertray, £45
Upgrades/tarting up, about £100
Total ~£800
Divide the above by the miles it's done in that time, or months owned, and it's cost buttons to run.
Highlights
It's a great car for filling up with crap that needs moving somewhere (see - tip runs, facebook marketplace furniture tat, camping trips, helping mates out with a house move or something random that needs towing, etc). But mainly it's a reliable, comfy mile muncher - in the first month of buying without doing anything other than checking tyre pressures and levels, we drove to Austria and back (2000 miles return) for the annual ski trip. The way back we did in one hit, with the car spending all day sat at 85mph on cruise control, and gave us ~45mpg too.
This time of year it comes in to it's own as it's quick to warm/heat up and shrugs off slippery conditions. Plus it looks better filthy:
Onwards!
This month is two years since buying a cheap P2 XC70 as a winter runabout/house mover/tip run car. In that time it's become the most popular car in the house for hacking around in and has covered 25k miles, despite all the covid lockdowns and restrictions.
It's popularity and consumption of miles meant I decided to keep on top of maintenance, and refresh worn out parts where required. I've kept a record of these mainly on this thread, but also the costs offline which I thought might be interesting to share.
All these are parts cost only as I do the work myself.
Servicing (parts required/worn out/at end of life)
2 x 'basic' services (oil changes, filters, etc) - it's about £80 a time for the bits, so £160 total.
Aux belt and tensioner, £80
Rear brakes, £90
Front brakes, £80
Rr droplinks, £40
O/S/F wheel bearing, £35
3 x brake calipers, £190
Tyres, £430
Total ~£1100
Servicing (optional bits; could've left if just running as shed)
2 x 'additional' services (oil changes, filters, etc) - it's about £80 a time for the bits, so £160 total.
Front suspension, £340
3 x engine mounts, £140
Front undertray, £45
Upgrades/tarting up, about £100
Total ~£800
Divide the above by the miles it's done in that time, or months owned, and it's cost buttons to run.
Highlights
It's a great car for filling up with crap that needs moving somewhere (see - tip runs, facebook marketplace furniture tat, camping trips, helping mates out with a house move or something random that needs towing, etc). But mainly it's a reliable, comfy mile muncher - in the first month of buying without doing anything other than checking tyre pressures and levels, we drove to Austria and back (2000 miles return) for the annual ski trip. The way back we did in one hit, with the car spending all day sat at 85mph on cruise control, and gave us ~45mpg too.
This time of year it comes in to it's own as it's quick to warm/heat up and shrugs off slippery conditions. Plus it looks better filthy:
Onwards!
Accelebrate said:
Good work as always. I put a similar looking set of eBay heater pads into a bucket seat that I use in my MX5 and connected them up to the factory seat heater wiring. They work great and get hotter than the original seats. I keep meaning to buy another set to combine with a drill battery and a coat for chilly walks
That's interesting, because I inserted a plastic tray with an extra layer of upholstery foam into the (very-similar to MX5) OE seats in my 124 Abarth Spider. (Should mention am only following this thread because we once had a 4X4 XC70 estate as our family car, plus rally service-barge; so still retain a soft spot for these handsome millennial workhorses). While thanks to its extra padding, our 124 Spider is now very much more-comfortable on the longer journeys; but I did still wonder about the flammability of all this added foam, once its heated element gets switched on? Judging by these pics OP has posted above, of the cloth heating element he's added to his XC70, the same question about proximity between a heated element and seating-foam arises here. (Even the factory-fitted heated seats on XC70s were not unknown to overheat).
More views invited from the Panel...
sam.rog said:
Fantastic thread.
It’s much more interesting reading about maintenance on old sheds than a few pics of a new car.
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying.It’s much more interesting reading about maintenance on old sheds than a few pics of a new car.
This weekend I replaced the rear shocks and springs. The car has it's original Nivomats still on - the self-levelling function still worked well but they'd lost most of the rebound control.
Replacement Nivomats are cost-prohibitive so I've switched to the non-self levelling dampers (and springs). These were the more common suspension arrangement for this era of XC70.
I didn't get too many pics as I was cracking on between rugby matches.
Old nivomat and spring. Note the large aluminium top mount as standard for this era of Ovlov:
The top mounts and upper spring seat (rubber) cleaned-up OK so I reused these. Old vs new laid out below. Boge/Sachs (OE) shock absorbers and KYB springs. The KYB springs are slightly longer than standard - these allow for a bit more carrying capacity without the self levelling nivomat shocks. Plus a small added side effect of raising the rear ride height a small amount - because it's all about the stance, etcs.
The downside of slightly longer springs is the amount of work required to compress them to get the top mount on. It took four spring compressors and lots of fannying around.
And this is where my photos dry up. I'll grab a few of the newly installed parts next time the rear wheels are off. Needless to say the new rear shocks are notably better at their job than the knackered, old ones - body control is much improved. They're also dramatically quieter - I hadn't realised quite how noisy it had got but it's now lovely.
Great thread, and similar to what I do with my old CLK with regards to spannering and just keeping it going.
Top tip on the yearly misting headlights, as I have to do the same with mine every year pre-MOT - apply a ceramic coating kits to the lenses. Works in a similar fashion to the coating they put on at the factory. My CLKs lenses would mist in 6 months or so, but they are holding very strong after a good coating.
Top tip on the yearly misting headlights, as I have to do the same with mine every year pre-MOT - apply a ceramic coating kits to the lenses. Works in a similar fashion to the coating they put on at the factory. My CLKs lenses would mist in 6 months or so, but they are holding very strong after a good coating.
Thanks - I'll go searching for the ceramic headlight coating.
When I had the new set of CrossClimates fitted, KwikFit were offering a free alignment check on their hunter machine. It wore out the last set of tyres evenly and drives nice and straight, but I do my own alignment using the string method (see previous posts on this thread) and it's always good to get a baseline from a decent alignment machine, plus last time I checked/adjusted it was last summer.
Caveats apply for the free alignment - you can't be in the workshop whilst they do it, and they charge £50/axle to adjust after the free check. Perhaps not surprisingly they won't let you have a printout of the free check, but at my local branch they have a live screen in the 'waiting room' and the alignment check is done in a bay adjacent so you can see them doing it:
Ignoring the colours, the takeaways are the FL is toeing-in 1/3rd of a degree and each rear wheel between 1/4 and 1/5th of a degree. I previously set the toe all around to straight ahead last summer after replacing the front suspension:
So I'll recheck using my string method and adjust the FL tie rod a little to reduce the toe in next time it's on the ramps. The rears can stay as they are as I'm happy with that level of toe in.
When I had the new set of CrossClimates fitted, KwikFit were offering a free alignment check on their hunter machine. It wore out the last set of tyres evenly and drives nice and straight, but I do my own alignment using the string method (see previous posts on this thread) and it's always good to get a baseline from a decent alignment machine, plus last time I checked/adjusted it was last summer.
Caveats apply for the free alignment - you can't be in the workshop whilst they do it, and they charge £50/axle to adjust after the free check. Perhaps not surprisingly they won't let you have a printout of the free check, but at my local branch they have a live screen in the 'waiting room' and the alignment check is done in a bay adjacent so you can see them doing it:
Ignoring the colours, the takeaways are the FL is toeing-in 1/3rd of a degree and each rear wheel between 1/4 and 1/5th of a degree. I previously set the toe all around to straight ahead last summer after replacing the front suspension:
TurboRob said:
Set the alignment to dead ahead and -0.6/0.7 deg camber. Trusty string method always works well for me:
I've always reckoned I can get the tracking to within 1mm over the diameter of the wheel (16", 406mm) so about 1/6th of a degree accuracy. So I'll recheck using my string method and adjust the FL tie rod a little to reduce the toe in next time it's on the ramps. The rears can stay as they are as I'm happy with that level of toe in.
devnull said:
Great thread, and similar to what I do with my old CLK with regards to spannering and just keeping it going.
Top tip on the yearly misting headlights, as I have to do the same with mine every year pre-MOT - apply a ceramic coating kits to the lenses. Works in a similar fashion to the coating they put on at the factory. My CLKs lenses would mist in 6 months or so, but they are holding very strong after a good coating.
With regards to this, the method for ensuring they don't degrade is to protect them with spray lacquer and cure each coat with a heat source. I paid ROC Headlights to do it in 2019 and they're still clear.Top tip on the yearly misting headlights, as I have to do the same with mine every year pre-MOT - apply a ceramic coating kits to the lenses. Works in a similar fashion to the coating they put on at the factory. My CLKs lenses would mist in 6 months or so, but they are holding very strong after a good coating.
Here's a recent photo.
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