Broken throttle cable.. Topic is solved

[cn90]

...My point is when does all the what if repairs end? It's cheaper, easier to pay $100 /yr for peace of mind roadside assistance and is insanity to replace all what ifs...

I think you miss my point re PM. I only focus on safety items or items that can get me into safety issue or getting stranded.

IMHO, the decision to replace a part(s) on a preventive basis depends on the following factors:

1. How critical is the car to you/family members? What does "down time" mean?
Loss of income etc.?
If this is a "weekend" car then it does not have to follow a rigorous maintenance schedule.

2. The budget and the desire to DIY.

3. How often do you go out of town for pleasure/business. When you are hundreds of miles from home far away from your tools, parts, it is a diff story.

4. The "consequence" of "living with parts on borrowed time". Most parts have a known MTBF (Mean Time btw failure).
Example:
- Worn/bald tires ---> potential accident, safety issues.
- A radiator with 180K is on borrowed time, it can crack any time. OK if you go around time. Not OK if you leave town frequently.
Not to mention dealing with head gasket issue if radiator blows.
- Cracked brake hose ---> safety issue, replace ASAP.
- Throttle Cable: it may appear sticky etc, but when it breaks, it breaks at either ends where it is crimped into that knob. Alsmot the same failure mode for the hood cable.

5. One's attitude toward car maintenance:
---> as @abscate said PM vs FOF philosophy.

PS: Aviation maintenance follows a different philosophy for obvious reasons: get stranded hundreds of miles in your car is different than plane's engine failure at 33,000 feet.

[850 LPT]

I think I will replace the one in the 850 with 248k on it. That car has a funny quirk: when I let go of the gas pedal to shift, then the RPM's don't drop sharply like in my 05 V70. They drop very slowly which makes for rather harsh shifts. I wonder if a new throttle cable will fix that?

Negative. That delay drop of RPM is programmed into the manual ecu.

I find that putting an auto ECU in a manual car will solve the delay drop of RPM, but I don't know if that will cause your check engine light to come on or not.

Well that kind of stinks. Why would they do that?

I ordered a new throttle cable anyway, I guess at this mileage it can't hurt. Plus I want to minimize reasons for my daughter to get stuck somewhere with the car.
Interesting idea about the auto ECU.

Dirk

[850 LPT]

Dirk..try driving your manual with the MAF plug off sometime. You'll feel like a teenager grinding the gears for the first time

The default fuel map is really hard to drive well.

Does your T5 drop the RPM sharply like it should?

[abscate]

I think it does rev down normally. There is a huge difference with the MAF unplugged. I think Evan noticed this too once, IIRC.

My P80 and P2 manuals both drive nearly the same, I think , in this regard. The p80 is more fun after 2500 rpm.

[mecheng]

...My point is when does all the what if repairs end? It's cheaper, easier to pay $100 /yr for peace of mind roadside assistance and is insanity to replace all what ifs...

I think you miss my point re PM. I only focus on safety items or items that can get me into safety issue or getting stranded.

IMHO, the decision to replace a part(s) on a preventive basis depends on the following factors:

1. How critical is the car to you/family members? What does "down time" mean?
Loss of income etc.?
If this is a "weekend" car then it does not have to follow a rigorous maintenance schedule.

2. The budget and the desire to DIY.

3. How often do you go out of town for pleasure/business. When you are hundreds of miles from home far away from your tools, parts, it is a diff story.

4. The "consequence" of "living with parts on borrowed time". Most parts have a known MTBF (Mean Time btw failure).
Example:
- Worn/bald tires ---> potential accident, safety issues.
- A radiator with 180K is on borrowed time, it can crack any time. OK if you go around time. Not OK if you leave town frequently.
Not to mention dealing with head gasket issue if radiator blows.
- Cracked brake hose ---> safety issue, replace ASAP.
- Throttle Cable: it may appear sticky etc, but when it breaks, it breaks at either ends where it is crimped into that knob. Alsmot the same failure mode for the hood cable.

5. One's attitude toward car maintenance:
---> as @abscate said PM vs FOF philosophy.

PS: Aviation maintenance follows a different philosophy for obvious reasons: get stranded hundreds of miles in your car is different than plane's engine failure at 33,000 feet.

I understand your reasoning, I use my experience to also understand the failure mode. For example, leaky radiators rarely ever spew out all of their coolant (yes catastrophic failures they do), but all the rad failures I've had were slow leaks where I was able to drive for weeks until I got a new one.

There is also an interesting philosophy in aircraft maintenance; where someone in the 1960s predicted that if planes were maintained the same way, there would be a crash everyday. They tracked the failures to necessary maintenance causing failures of other components, as we all see this too well when we bring our car to a shady mechanic or we ourselves forget to do something correctly due to human error. This is when they started to look at maintainting only what is necessary and not 'over maintaining'.

BTW: how did you know about CAA, most American's wouldn't?

[precopster]

My 2000 V70 still has the factory upper and lower radiator hoses at 352,000kms, but then again it's a non-turbo so anything's possible

BTW Amazon USA had 850 upper radiator hoses made by Gates (22251) for under $4 each. I bought 3 of them and sold them all for $25 each in the first week.

Goes to show if something's cheap enough all of a sudden replacing it becomes extremely important

If anyone wants a new USA throttle cable Genuine Volvo (LHD) I would be glad to post it out at shipping cost only.