XC90 pulls when braking... not the same story repeated

[ggleavitt]

Unless someone says otherwise, the LCA bolts to the subframe are torqued at the ride height. I would also torque the ball joint nut to LCA at the same height.

VIDA instruction::

It is vital that the screwed joints for the rubber bushings are tightened in the "normal" position (in the same position as when the car is on the ground and has three people in the car and a full fuel tank). The "normal" position of the rear suspension is 453 mm from the wing edge to the center of the wheel.

Instruction applies to the rear suspension only, there's, no similar comment in VIDA about any component in the front.

[Blacklab467]

I cannot stress enough how important it is to use OEM parts in these Volvo's. I wore out a set of Chinese LCA's and Ball Joints in 3 months last summer and had to change the whole front end out to Volvo parts in the end. It will cost you more obviously but its worth it. I didn't notice how many miles are on your vehicle but I might also suggest changing the subframe bushings as well if its high mileage. I don't think your pulling problem has anything to do with the way you torqued your parts, you may also be suspicious of your strut spring seats, those can separate and cause the problem you're describing.

[abscate]

Many Volvo bolts on the suspension are single use.

For every internet anecdote of “ I reuse them all the time “ there are 10 people driving around with sloppy suspensions and poor driving performance. Add in cheap parts and it’s a perfect storm.

Use tasca or FCP for new hardware

[chitownV]

Original quote edited for space

ISSUE: 2008 XC90 with 177k miles pulls to the right when braking. If you feather the brake it will still track mostly straight, but if you lay into the stop pedal, it drifts pretty hard and requires a steering correction. Seems straightforward thus far.

Backstory:
I've had the car for several years... always do preventative maintenance and it's never left us stranded. When looking at the car on the lift at 175k, noticed the LCA bushings were getting a bit worn and cracked, so time to replace. Tackled the project in an afternoon with new SKP parts from Rockauto, they went in fine. Immediately after, noticed car drifting to the right on braking.

INTERESTING THING:
here is the part that has me stumped. With an assistant, I had the car running whilst on the lift and put in gear at idle speed just to get the front wheels moving. When you hit the brake pedal, both front tires toe in, the driver's side most significantly. No weight on the chassis, nothing on the ground, but you can see clear toe-in movement and the idle speed will drop a bit with the steering wheel held straight. Put the car back on the ground again and just rapidly hit the brake while in Park, and the tires will again toe inward slightly, obviously less with the ground resistance.

As was mentioned, aftermarket control arm bushings have a long history of brake pull feel, even with new bushings.

I had that after all new front LCA bushings. Swapped out for better and different on the front LCA bushings with no change. Went after the rear bushings on the front LCA, and found one was poorly made in rubber casting. I had done a lot of researching, and found that the rear bushings on the front LCAs are usually the culprit.
First question is are they correctly installed at the correct angle per VIDA. but more than likely, the rear bushings aren't top quality. Mine are now all Poly and I'm very pleased, with the moose tracking straight down the road when braking.

Here are posts from more than a decade ago and from 5 years ago with the same issue. There are numerous more threads and some videos showing this exact issue.
https://www.swedespeed.com/threads/car- ... st-1479571
https://www.swedespeed.com/threads/wobb ... st-5043545

[chitownV]

Wanted to add a test for the bushings that doesn't do any damage and does not require special tools/diagnostics. I did this on someone's XC90 and it confirmed aftermarket bushings were the culprit for brake pull and drift/sway where overcorrection was needed.

Find some rubber you can fit into the cut-outs of the forward bushings. I used an old coolant hose and cut it up. I slid the rubber into the cut-outs and immediately the handling improved. This confirmed the aftermarket bushings were too soft and flexing too much. That's it.

Later, I replaced the control arm bushings with polyurethane forward bushings and Volvo rearward bushings and their XC90 tracks straight and brakes straight well into triple digits.

[Xavif315]

Hey there! So was it determined that the pulling to right/left is caused by using lesser quality LCAs? I thought my cause of pulling was one side so I replaced one with a Dorman.. Then didnt notice a difference so i did the other side and same.. Then I thought it was a bad caliper so I bought a new set that I have not yet installed, lol I also did new brakes/rotors.

[SOURDOUGHJIM]

I used LCA's from 1A Auto. TRQ brand. Package deal, came with ball joints. I haven't had any issue. After an alignment, it's a pleasure to drive. I hope they last!
Could there be an issue with the wheel hubs? Sounds like everything else has been addressed.

[chitownV]

You can read this thread linked below about the XC90 front suspension and which specific brand parts work well. Even Volvo original rubber bushings have reports of being too soft, causing pull on hard braking and excess tire wear/feathering. Included are links to different XC90 owners’ experiences.
https://www.swedespeed.com/threads/chit ... ts.590829/

[willreed1]

Hello all, I thought that I would respond back to this thread and provide an update on this saga for future readers of the post and trying to troubleshoot similar issues. The brief answer is that ultimately it was a failure of the left side lower control arm, which then progressively caused other issues with the ball joints and overall geometry. So maybe the title of my first post should have really been that it is the same story repeated, just with other factors.

I did end up going back to OE Volvo LCAs and new Moog ball joints. While I could not tell any difference in the measurements on the SKF aftermarket LCAs, in comparing the rubber surrounds there is a significant difference in the Volvo pieces - a thicker "hat" of rubber and a just overall more material to help prevent unwanted movement. The failure of the SKF part was at the union of the bolt sleeve on the vertical (rear) mounting point with the subframe. When this flexed, it caused the entire front assembly to slide forward and then ate up the ball joint boots and even bent the mating surface of the ball joint to LCA. While the Uro ball joints didn't fail, the Moog versions were again a much better construction and have a castle nut with pin versus a nylon locking nut.

While I did not necessarily enjoy replacing all of these parts over 23k miles, including struts, LCAs, ball joints, hub bearings, end links, engine mounts, steering rack, and brake parts, I will say that each of the replacement pieces made an improvement to the overall handling and likely needed to be replaced at close to 200k miles on the vehicle. All of these are wear parts, and getting that kind of service life is still pretty impressive. With suspensions, it's similar to your body reacting to pain - one issue ends up causing several other issues elsewhere and the root cause is masked with the wear or failure of the weakest link.

Thanks again to this forum for the expert advice and documents. Also, a recommendation to check out Erie Vovo (https://www.erievovo.com) for OE used parts if you are in the U.S., as their inventory and lookup system was super helpful and prices were good.