Any specific problems with the 98 V70 AWD?

Post by **Maxbaby** » 05 Dec 2007, 21:55

Not sure how interested I am necessarily, but there's a 98 V70 AWD Turbo with 243,000km up for sale in town. I was just curious about what specific issues there might be with that model year? I haven't investigated it yet, so I haven't determined the maintenance history of the vehicle or anything like that. Like I said, I'm more curious about any issues that are model-specific. Sounds like there's some room to move on the price...

bekko · Post by **bekko** » 06 Dec 2007, 00:13

We have a 98 V70 cross country that my wife bought new. I always thought the car was a lemon because there was an endless stream of little problems - but none were related to the drive train. I was always afraid to touch it until wife upgraded to a '04 V70. We were not able to unload it for $5k and finally decided to keep it for the kids. Now, I'm reading about the mechanics and trying to catch up on the maintenance. In so doing, I have found that '98 was a transition year and am wondering if maybe they didn't quite have the bugs ironed out. Ours only has 150k but has serious compression issues. I was told the compression issues could be related to a failure to maintain the PCV system. We are told that you cannot reset the service engine light on a '98 with an off-the-shelf OBD2 code reader - but I haven't gotten that far yet.

-steve

Post by **pfeener** » 06 Dec 2007, 07:45

98 in general was a good year. The early year AWD systems (such as the 98) were very problematic, especially if the car was ever run with mismatched or unevenly worn tires. There is a cheap way out if you have issues with the AWD system; the rear driveshaft can be disconnected and the car run as a FWD car. My advise, don't buy this car unless you absolutely need an AWD car. You can get a FWD 98 that will be cheaper and more reliable.

Arbelac · Post by **Arbelac** » 06 Dec 2007, 20:48

bekko wrote:We have a 98 V70 cross country that my wife bought new. I always thought the car was a lemon because there was an endless stream of little problems - but none were related to the drive train. I was always afraid to touch it until wife upgraded to a '04 V70. We were not able to unload it for $5k and finally decided to keep it for the kids. Now, I'm reading about the mechanics and trying to catch up on the maintenance. In so doing, I have found that '98 was a transition year and am wondering if maybe they didn't quite have the bugs ironed out. Ours only has 150k but has serious compression issues. I was told the compression issues could be related to a failure to maintain the PCV system. We are told that you cannot reset the service engine light on a '98 with an off-the-shelf OBD2 code reader - but I haven't gotten that far yet.

-steve

You can reset the check engine light, but not the service reminder light. Stupid, but not critical, it turns off 2 minutes after start for the oil change reminder. We ignore ours.

Post by **Maxbaby** » 06 Dec 2007, 20:51

Pfeener, I'd heard somewhere in the model years of problems with the AWD system, so that answers my question... no 98 for me. It was a good deal, so naturally, thought I'd ask why?.... Funny how things work out. I'll stick with my 93 for now...