Maintenance Log: 205k-270k s70 rebuild before being totaled Topic is solved

[smacknab]

I'm writing this to have a proper maintenance log of my 99 S70 - NA m56 transmission. I've made plenty of panic threads where I've learned a lot from the community, and a couple where I've shared what I've done. It's also an exercise in sharing my own experience in sunk-cost bias, and naive obsessive tendencies to try to make a 20+ year old, 200k mile car 'perfect'. I just saw the $10k / 10yr / 100k mile s80 thread and it inspired me because I've been doing a lot of mental math trying to figure out how long or for how many miles I could drive the s70 before it becomes 'worth it'. I've spent the last couple years since graduating college on a crash course in personal finance while I tackled my student loans and set myself up for long term financial health. Below I'll copy in my phone note where I list everything I've done to the car, try to update it with what this endeavor has cost me, and add links to other threads that have stemmed from this car.

In 2019 I went to Greece with my fiancé to visit her parents' village and meet her grandparents and the other half of her aunts/uncles/cousins that hadn't immigrated to the USA. Since we'd be spending almost a month there I figured at some point we might be able to borrow a car and tour around, and since it was Greece I figured that car would likely be a manual transmission. I had had a few attempts to drive stick before from friends but i never got serious practice with it, so before we left for Greece I asked a friend to give me a proper lesson til i felt confident enough. When we got to her family village I realized nobody had a car to lend (makes sense, not many people i've met in life have an expensive machine sitting around for some cousin you just met to joy ride around the Peloponnese in). We ended up deciding to rent a car last minute and the only car they had was a manual transmission toyota hatchback, the first drive was a narrow winding mountain road between Kalamata and her village outside of Sparta. I did not yet know how to hill-start. It was incredibly dumb but incredibly fun.

Anyway so I get home and decide I want a manual car, and due to my financial independence quest i had a mission to teach myself how to fix a car. I always had a fondness for Volvos so i found a 99 s70 with 205k miles and a stick, professor owned with good maintenance records and bought it for $1000. I did not know at that point that all Volvos are worth $500. I did a ton of research on p80s (thanks RobertDIY) and how to inspect a car (thanks ChrisFix) but missed some big issues. This is where the cost of all of this comes in and i think boils down to a couple of key points.

Sunk cost bias: Every issue which I found along the way was all after I had put some money into the car, so i decided to keep going.
Lifetime Warranty: Bless FCP, and one day the lifetime warranty might bring me back into the black on this car, but I went to them for almost every part with the understanding that I would never have to pay for that part again. I did get junkyard parts for some stuff, but much of it was FCP.
Do it right, all of it: I also subscribed to the school of thought that if you're down there messing with one part, why not replace the associated parts, or the other side, so you know its all refreshed.
I Became Obsessed This plays into the last point above, but fixing the car became my new hobby so i was constantly thinking about it and this led to me justifying things that probably didn't need to be justified. 'if i'm doing the tie rods i might as well do the control arms, if i'm doing those, they're going to get ruined quickly by the old suspension, if i'm refreshing the suspension i should do all the associated subframe bushings, since I've done all this I should probably replace the clutch which as seen ~215k miles, etc'

So anyway, I'd guess I'm in just about $9000 on this car, including things like tires, craigslist set of mounted winter tires, oil+fluids, and maybe like $400 of labor fees of when i had to bring it into a shop. I've owned for 1.5 years and driven about 25k miles. Below is the list as I added it to my phone notes, but the big things i've done to the car, in chronological order, are:

Brake refresh (calipers, rotors, pads, fluid)
Timing Belt + tune up (tb, fuel filter, sparks, coils, etc)
Head gasket + top end (i had low compression on two adjacent cylinders, turned out to more likely be burnt valves)
Suspension pt1 (rods, arms, struts+shocks, front+rear springs, subframe bushings, motor mounts)
Suspension pt2 (i broke a shock mount bolt, so i pulled a delta link off a c70 and replaced the inner bushings and outer endlinks, also replaced the frozen ebrake cables with volvo units (ouch))
AC system + heating (compressor froze soon after I bought it so I deleted the ac, then later redid the entire system - compressor, condensor, evaporator, rebuilt the dash mounts, replaced the leaking heater core)
Clutch (I found a lightly used clutch and flywheel on the forum here for $400, so i pulled the engine to do that but also did all the associated hydraulic clutch parts)
Rust Issues (at this point i found out the drivers side runner had rusted out, so i cut out the rust and grafted new metal in donated by abscate)
Along the Way (plenty of evap lines, little sensors, dealt with a ETS light which was caused by the brake pedal position sensor, couple junkyard starters, alternator, power steering pump, door switches, CV axles, resealed the oil pan, trunk struts, etc)


Full List:
DONE____________
Oil and filter (blue AutoZone filter)
Coolant flush (volvo fluid)
Timing belt (+water pump and pulleys, FCP Euro kit)
Thermostat (Volvo, FCP)
Coolant temp sensor (Volvo, FCP)
Serp Belt
O2 front sensor (Bosch, FCP)
Air Filter
Fuel filter (Bosch, FCP)
Cabin air filter
Starter (used)
New Battery
AC Delete (sourced and installed bracket)
Alternator (used unit)
Serp Tensioner (aftermarket, Rock)
Engine mounts (bottom right OEM and ipd Poly top bushing)
Manual Transmission fluid (volvo)

Calipers (rebuilt, Rock),
Rotors (FCP)
Pads (FCP)
+flushed and bled brakes with new DOT4+

Craigslist Winter tires + rims (balanced)

----12/27/19---

Head gasket (Volvo)
Valve stem seals (Volvo)
Surface Head
Intake, exhaust, coolant temp gaskets
PCV Kit (fcp)
Replace Dipstick tube and dipstick (updated model)
Front vaccum lines
Radiator hoses (Volvo + 1 aftermarket I forgot to buy)
Coolant Level sensor (FCP)
Cleaned throttle body (and new gasket)
Cleaned MAF

Negative Battery cable crimp
Vaccum hose behind the fuel filtel (fuel evap?)

---1/10/20---

Heater core (Behr, new style clips+o-rings Fcp)
Power steering pump (used unit)
Power steering flush (green fluid)

Oil change, early January (OE filter and synth-blend)
CV Axle Front Left (aftermarket from API)

Tie rods, inner and outer (SMI Style, TRW parts, FCP)
Sway bar end links (lemforder, FCP)
Alignment on February 6 (Town Fair Tire)

5 Volvo Sparkplugs
5 Bosch Ignition Coils
Flexible preheater hose

---March 2020---

Front struts, seats & hardware (Sachs kit, FCP)
Front & rear coil springs (Lemforder)
Rear shocks and bump stops (Sachs, FCP)
Subframe bushings and IPD Poly inserts
Control Arms (Meyle HD)
inner trailing arm bushings (Meyle, FCP Euro)
Another alignment (townfair tire)

Parking brake and hardware (FCP Euro)
Passenger Side Door lock - (junkyard)
Passenger Side window switch (junkyard)
Trunk struts (Amazon)
Left CV axle - Napa

Oilpan - cleaned, new o-rings and resealed
Oil Change - Castrol Synth Blend, Mahn Filter

Lower motor mounts, front & rear (aftermarket, FCP)

----4/2/20----

4 New all season tires (Sullivan Tire)

Air conditioning:
-used Valeo compressor
-accumulator, condenser, evaporator, purge valve, new o-rings (FCP)
-flushed ac lines with solvent
Fixed dash tabs with 2 part epoxy

Driver's side window rail regulator tab
Rear driver's side window switch
Evap hose, (carbon canister to roll over valve)

Junkyard Throttle Body

---216k miles--- 7/25/20

Clutch + new Bolts (LUK, used 1500 miles)
Flywheel + new bolts (Volvo, used 1500 miles)
internal slave (Volvo, FCP)
Hydraulic Clutch Line (Volvo, FCP)
Rear main seal, input shaft seal, axle seals (Volvo)
Harmonic balancer (Volvo, FCP)
New right CV Axle (aftermarket, IPD)
New Transmission oil
New Coolant
Oil Change (217k miles)

Evap shut off valve 9486016 (Peirburg, FCP)
Canister purge valve 8631285 (Peirburg, FCP)

Fuel tank pressure sensor (Volvo, JY)
Cleaned all electrical contacts above fuel tank

Key ring antenna/immobilizer (Volvo, JY)
Cleaned contacts

---218k Miles---
Swapped in c70 Delta Link Assembly (JY)
Rear trailing arm endlinks (Febi, FCP)
Swapped in Transverse bushings (new from March)
Good shape rear brake dust sheilds attached
Rear spring washer, right side (1387906, JY)
New hardware, replaced all TTY bolts

New parking brake cables (Volvo, Dealership)

Cleaned rear wheel well rust, sprayed with rust reformer
Rolled rear wheel wells to fit c70 Delta link

Alignment 8/27/20 - Townfair Tire

---219k Miles--- 8/30/20
Exhaust manifold (aftermarket, 1A Auto)
Hardware (Volvo, FCP) - (4/10 studs, new nuts)
Gasket (Volvo, eBay)
Brake pedal position sensor (Volvo, FCP)
Junkyard Starter

Rear left rocker cut, replaced and painted

---221,500---
Oil change, 5w-30
2 consecutive tanks with Lucas injector cleaner
Rotated tires
Replaced pcv hose 1270321

226,798
Oil change

[smacknab]

TLDR - Naive young guy knows nothing about cars, buys an old volvo to fix it up, gets obsessed and spends way too much money doing it, learns alot but hopes to get enough years/miles out of it to make it all worth it.

$$ - Depending on how you want to calculate it, the 'pay off' on this could be 3-4 years of ownership (compared to a say $300/ mo car payment), 6-7+ years of ownership (some personal finance types say a car should cost you no more than $1500 per year average over the course of ownership), or I could try to calculate at a cost per mile basis which is a little more tricky but right now the car itself (no gas, insurance, registration costs) is about $0.37 per mile (~$9000 against 25,000 miles). The intangible value of a hobby i've enjoyed and new skills i've learned are hard to quantify, but would be interesting calculations. Also any warrantied FCP part that might break i suppose could be considered a savings.

Here are links to threads related to my car, and some favorite photos over the last year and a half.

Ac compressor seized
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=91460&p=520928#p520928
Head gasket
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=91809&p=523791#p523791
Suspension
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=92935&p=532658#p532658
Ac refresh/dash repair
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=93798&p=540985#p540985
Rust repair
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=93599&start=30
Delta Link/rear trailing arms
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=95018&p=553720#p553720

[Sveedy]

Well hats off to you !! That's a lot of work to bite off with little mechanical experience.
And yes - I think you'll get the mileage / years out of it to make it all worth while. I basically did the same thing with my Jeep Cherokee.
That was 18 years ago. Still running strong with just under 400k miles on it. Doing as much as you can in big chunks,as opposed to little bits here and there, pays off in the long run. IMHO.

[smacknab]

Well hats off to you !! That's a lot of work to bite off with little mechanical experience.
And yes - I think you'll get the mileage / years out of it to make it all worth while. I basically did the same thing with my Jeep Cherokee.
That was 18 years ago. Still running strong with just under 400k miles on it. Doing as much as you can in big chunks,as opposed to little bits here and there, pays off in the long run. IMHO.

Thanks Sveedy, I appreciate the support! I'd like to get it to atleast 300k

[BlackBart]

Agreed - an impressive amount of work!

Did you already know how to weld?

[abscate]

some personal finance types say a car should cost you no more than $1500 per year average over the course of ownership)

Personal finance people are stupid wankers

Average driver in US , 12000 miles per year

Fed gives you 50 cents per mile for a new car, of which half is depreciation , so in average people spend about 6k a year per car. Getting that to 1500 a year is only possible if you do your own work.

Your running 40 cents per mile now but that will drop steeply each year you run it, and will converge to 20 cpm long term, which is a good frugal target.

[smacknab]

Agreed - an impressive amount of work!

Did you already know how to weld?

I went to a vocational high school where i did a 2 week intro to the welding program as a freshman. So took that experience and watched some youtube videos as a refresher. I had a friend who does professional autobody come over for a couple hours to help me cut and graft in the new section of the body panel, which was the hardest and most skilled part of the job. I also was lucky to have a friend who could lend me a mig welder.

some personal finance types say a car should cost you no more than $1500 per year average over the course of ownership)

Fed gives you 50 cents per mile for a new car, of which half is depreciation , so in average people spend about 6k a year per car. Getting that to 1500 a year is only possible if you do your own work.

That is a good point, that I don't have any depreciation to worry about on it. I feel like it the car died tomorrow i could part it out or swap bits to a v70 body and make the case that it was worth it. But i also could make that case that my 9k could've gotten me something much newer or lower miles (but probably not with heated seats lol).

[abscate]

No other car group comes with this amazing community and it’s incredibly high talent/ wanker ratio.

Mvs did as much to pull me into the brand as Volvo

Even SWMBO knows when we replace her E83 eventually, it will be with an XC90

[stephansvolvo]

This is good stuff. Thank you for this post. I’ve been overly frustrated with an 04 S60 and 98 S70. I think both my kids, who I talked into Volvo are like, “what did you get me into?” I’ve got one rebuilt and another in garage waiting for the head to come back after head gaskets and more $$$$ than either expected. But hey, it’s been great working on them with them.

[FireFox31]

This is a great post. I'm in a similar position having just bought a 200k mi 2000 V70. I want to make it solid, not perfect, for $3000 in order to get another 100k mi out of it. This post is a good list of work for me to consider.

But i also could make that case that my 9k could've gotten me something much newer or lower miles

Perhaps not with a stick shift and a reputation for reliability that the P80 Volvo has.