tearing out what is left of my hair, 2000 V70 XC: P0442 Topic is solved

[RickHaleParker]

haven't got the foggiest how that works .... have heard of the "dreaded" smoke test.

Nothing dreadful about a smoke test. You pump smoke into a closed system and it will come out the leaks. Just follow the smoke to find the leaks. Saves a ton of time over guessing and parts swapping.

Google "DIY EVAP smoke machine" . You will find all kinds of ways to build a Smoke machine for $20.00 or less. You might just have everything you need laying around.

[erikv11]

Don't look to Haynes for information on your car, look first to this forum. That will eliminate a few nightmares right there. But a few bad dreams are unavoidable with a 20 year old car.

I'd start with smoke test or visual inspections of all the easily accessible parts that people told you about in this thread. These are the most likely causes. If one is bad replace it. Even if replacing one of those parts and it doesn't fix the code, you've replaced something broken. Refreshing all the rubber piping is a great idea IMHO, because as Matt said it is old and rotting by now. The plastic piping usually lasts longer, FWIW.

[abscate]

Your XC has a completely different rear suspension and evap layout than the FWD CARS. Haynes manuals often miss things like this, though they are the richest DIYseries out there by far.

If you cannot see faults in the canister via smoke test, you have to drop the entire rear axle assembly to service the rest of the system.

Covered in the Ekaterina Resurrection Thread

[Rocket99]

Many thanks to you guys.

The CEL disappeared all on its own after a few trips to the filling station and screwing that new Volvo dealer fuel cap down really tight.

So grateful to y'all I learn a whole lot paying attention to you guys.

[Rocket99]

BEJinFbk .... thx for that suggestion, makes sense for finding flaky cracked tubes. thankfully I stalled around on jacking it up and crawling around under is to find the problem until, the CEL went away on its own and has been dark for 3 days now. thx again.

[scot850]

It may be worth looking at the face of the fuel filler. I had an issue with one of my cars due to rough treatment by previous owner when filling up the car. The had hit the filler tub so hard that it was scraped and had gouges in it. I had to stuff a rag in the filler neck and carefully sand and polish the face where the rubber seal fitted to get a good seal with the gas cap.

Good Luck!

Neil.

[Rocket99]

Thanks Neal for the ideas
re: the check engine light, after install new dealer gas cap, the light would go out without clearing codes when I filled it up. Then it would come on shortly, then after a longer time , then longer still. Now it never comes on any more.

Who knew. I maintain Volvos are wierd but then they are working right very nice car.

Now I have slow coolant leak, very slow.

what to do?? lift it up when its hot and look for signs of slow coolant leak at underside of engine. will have to rent a car to get to san diego soon, too risky with coolant leak which could be trouble

Thanks again for previous assist.

john

[abscate]

If you dont have to add coolant for more than two weeks, I would take the car on a road trip, especially in populated areas where it is easy to get help. Do try to identify the leak origin, then you can order parts and have them with you, even if you dont get to put them on.

[850 LPT]

Mix a Gallon of Volvo coolant and put it in the trunk. Then enjoy your trip!

The light comes on when there is still close to an inch of coolant still in the reservoir. Pleanty of time to pull over and top up.
Just make sure to open the cap very slowly to let the pressure equalize.

[RickHaleParker]

Haynes manuals often miss things like this, though they are the richest DIY series out there by far.

Haynes the Microsoft of repair manuals.

Steve Jobs:
We're better than you are! We have better stuff.

Bill Gates:
You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter!

Same thing with MS DOS vs CP/M later renamed DR DOS. MS DOS is a cheap knockoff of CP/M. Originally DOS was called QDOS ( Quick Dirty Operating System ) they knew it was crap.