'99 V70 -- IPD Heavy Duty Sway Bar Link Catastrophic Failure

[grntrdbx]

I bought the HD endlinks and lower control arms for my wife's '04' V70R and within a year the endlinks and the LCA bushings were junk. I ended up removing the LCA's (sending them back for a refund at my cost) and replacing the LCA bushings in the original LCA's and going with factory replacement endlinks. I wasn't pleased with the so-called HD parts. I put less than 10k miles on those HD parts too.

[ThommyKent]

Interesting how only the links that came with the cars new seem to be any good. I`m not looking forward to replacing the stock ones on my '97 T5. Fortunately they are still good with 155K miles.

[erikv11]

The new Volvo-branded links are also good, not just the 90s-vintage, factory ones.

[j-dawg]

A new owner has taken over and it appears money is more the object than quality. Rather sad actually.

To be fair, the new owner took over much more recently than the age of the parts we're complaining about here.

[E Showell]

So, I had another IPD Heavy Duty sway bar end link failure. This time it was on the '98 V70. Failure mode was identical. The lower ball became detached from the end link socket and the unconnected bar was dangling from the strut. In fairness, suspension on that was done at 180k miles and we're at 291K miles now. I'm planning a road trip so I replaced it, at least temporarily with a used Volvo OEM end link (just replaced on the S70 and providentially, not yet thrown out). That one probably lasted for 5 years. That having been said, the used Volvo replacement had 107k miles on it and appeared fine.

OEM only on these for me from here on out.