JYL Portland OR 2000 XC70 resurrection :Introductions, Hello

[jyl]

Hello everyone.

We recently welcomed a 2000 XC70 to the family, so I’m furiously reading this forum trying to learn!

It belonged to a friend’s husband. When he passed, the car was parked under a redwood tree and sat for ten years, a lump of moss and redwood debris.

She gave the car to my son, we had it towed to an independent Volvo shop, who had to do quite a bit to get it running. Battery of course, brakes all seized, ABS not working, fuel filler and vent hoses blocked, also did timing belt and general tune up. Then my son and I spent a day cleaning it up, and it came out looking quite nice on the interior. It doesn’t even smell moldy anymore.

The exterior trim and paint are okay except for large areas of significant clearcoat damage on the hood and roof, from inches of wet redwood litter over a decade. The only thing that works there is sanding off the damaged layer with 600-1000-2000-buffer, which I’ll be doing then possibly respraying with clear.

By the way, Cerakote is amazing stuff for plastic trim.

Waiting on new tires. Everything seems to work except headlight wipe/wash, hatch closed sensor (hatch open warning light always on), and possibly another door closed sensor (interior lights stay on when doors closed, unless lights switched to “off”). Some door panels are loosely attached, I assume the clips are broken. Oh, and a Evap Emissions System Leak code.

117,000 miles. It’ll be my son’s daily and ski car. The AWD will be handy!

I’m quite taken with the car. It’s our first Volvo. Joins a motley fleet - BMW E28, Mercedes W124 and W211, Porsche 3.2 aircooled, VW Vanagon, Jeep XJ, and the trusty Honda Element that actually does all the work.

Anyway, hello and I’m glad this forum exists!

[scot850]

Welcome to MVS, and I wish you loads of luck with your new to you project!

Neil.

[abscate]

Hello everyone.

We recently welcomed a 2000 XC70 to the family, so I’m furiously reading this forum trying to learn!

It belonged to a friend’s husband. When he passed, the car was parked under a redwood tree and sat for ten years, a lump of moss and redwood debris.

She gave the car to my son, we had it towed to an independent Volvo shop, who had to do quite a bit to get it running. Battery of course, brakes all seized, ABS not working, fuel filler and vent hoses blocked, also did timing belt and general tune up. Then my son and I spent a day cleaning it up, and it came out looking quite nice on the interior. It doesn’t even smell moldy anymore.

The exterior trim and paint are okay except for large areas of significant clearcoat damage on the hood and roof, from inches of wet redwood litter over a decade. The only thing that works there is sanding off the damaged layer with 600-1000-2000-buffer, which I’ll be doing then possibly respraying with clear.

By the way, Cerakote is amazing stuff for plastic trim.

Waiting on new tires. Everything seems to work except headlight wipe/wash, hatch closed sensor (hatch open warning light always on), and possibly another door closed sensor (interior lights stay on when doors closed, unless lights switched to “off”). Some door panels are loosely attached, I assume the clips are broken. Oh, and a Evap Emissions System Leak code.

117,000 miles. It’ll be my son’s daily and ski car. The AWD will be handy!

I’m quite taken with the car. It’s our first Volvo. Joins a motley fleet - BMW E28, Mercedes W124 and W211, Porsche 3.2 aircooled, VW Vanagon, Jeep XJ, and the trusty Honda Element that actually does all the work.

Anyway, hello and I’m glad this forum exists!

That’s quite a fleet jyl, especially that T3 VW!

The xc70 in the 98-99 00 flavour is a special snowflake but luckily a bunch of us cool kids here have one.

Take a look at the panhard stays at the rear and make sure they aren’t rusted out. There are some unicorn parts back there you have to be careful to not break.

That rear hatch sensor is probably a broken wire in the left hatch bracket, and is also turning on you interior lights full time. Just click the switch to off until we get to that. How is you soldering fu?

Synthetic oil only in a Volvo turbo, and keep those tires matched.

[jyl]

I don’t know much/anything about the XC70 model. Was it the first AWD Volvo model?

I can solder, and will try to figure out where that wire break is - presumably right where it has to flex? I’ll also get it on the lift and inspect the underside.

I ordered a set of Vredestein Quatrac tires, seems they should handle ski trips and normal driving. We’re only 90 min drive from skiing and only the last 5-10 miles typically has snow on the roads. The bigger winter challenge here is the occasional ice storm, when roads and everything else are covered with slick melted/refrozen ice. I’ve never found anything short of a Blizzak/other full snow tire to work then, but maybe the Vredesteins will surprise. TireRack was out of stock but expecting new inventory, supposedly we’ll have the tires by month-end (tariffs willing).

[matthew1]

Welcome, jyl. Clearcoat... black or red paint? Yes, Volvo's first AWD.

Everything on MVS that isn't in the forums is the Volvo Repair Database (2% of MVS pages), which, to my great surprise, also contains lots of news items, but ignore that. Everything in the Repair Database is the creme de la creme that is (usually) pulled from the forums (98% MVS pages) over the last 20 years and promoted to VRD due to significance/importance. The forums are very broad and very deep, but you can handle that with a well structured search, which you're probably done. Forums search tip: use Topic Titles Only first, then to broaden results, select any of those other radio buttons. Start tight, then loosen.

topic-titles-only.png (188.44 KiB) Viewed 430 times

Don't be afraid to ask questions. There's a lot of info here and because we're pre-AI Singularity, it takes a bit of "knack" to get to it all via search.

Volvo Repair Database awd examples:

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/how-t ... wd-system/
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/why-w ... -delicate/
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/?s=awd
etc

[scot850]

Nope, not strictly correct. First AWD car was the 1997 850 AWD but the US did not get that. It is mechanically the same as a 98 V70 AWD and close cousin to the V70 XC. Looks like you and your son have a good project there. I wish you good luck with the repairs and improvements!

Neil.

[jyl]

Thank you. Collecting the cream of the crop in the database is a great thing!

[wizechatmgr]

Example of a bad panhard stay/rod:

[abscate]

Added stuff to title for reference. Let me know if you want changes

[Clemens]

I recently put Vredestein Quadtracs on my winter T5 and they are quite nice for all season tires. If I drove in the snow alot, I'd opt for real winter tires, but our winters are getting noticeable warmer and for ski trips I use my Transit Van anyhow.