Highway vibration in 850 wagon. Need help with this.

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » 30 Aug 2004, 13:55

I have a 96 850 wagon and it vibrates a little on the highway around 60 MPH and up. The faster the worse it gets. You can feel it in the steering wheel and in the floor. I first thought the tires were out of balance and had them balanced. No better. I had thought they may be out of round and had them replaced. No better. Both CV joints were replaced also. Still no better. No mechanics can find anything wrong with front end, suspension, motor mounts ect. I read that some other people have this with their 850s and 70s. Before I bought my car I test drove a 94 850 turbo sedan. It vibrated much worse than my car. You could actually see the steering wheel shake when on the highway. Has anyone found a fix for this? Please tell me what cured this annoying vibration. Thanks everyone.

Post by **matthew1** » 30 Aug 2004, 14:03

Wow... that's a tough one to crack apparently. Have you tried, or has anyone suggested along the way, balancing the wheel while it's on the car? Some tire places can do this... the machines are not common however.

Also, did this happen with the last set of tires? Or did it start with these? When did the problem start, and did it sneak up gradually or all at once?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 31 Aug 2004, 13:32

The problem was there before the tires were replaced. I bought the car like this so I don't know when it started. I think this is not a tire issue. Surely someone else has had this same problem.

Peace_Frog · Post by **Peace_Frog** » 01 Sep 2004, 09:07

I have a problem that could be similar to yours. When I bought my 97 turbo AWD 850, I could feel a very slight vibration when I was driving precisely between 102 km/h and 110 kmh (multiply by 1.6 for miles). It would not make the steering wheel vibrate. It was more like a humming low pitch sound that would disapear at a higher speed. At first, I tought it was the winter tires. Then came summer and that sound was still there.

I searched the internet for possible clues until I pinpointed my driveshaft (ouch...$). So my wife brings the car to the garage for a checkup before leaving for vacations in Southern Maine (from Quebec). I ask to have the "arbre de transmission" checked (that's the dirveshaft for us french speaking Canadians). The customer service guy gives back the car to us saying nothing's wrong with driveshaft and have a good vacation Mr Bergeron... The day before we leave we pass in front of the garage, so we stopped to have the tire pressure checked and chat with our friends. My wife is still worried about the low sound and sees that the mechanic in charged of our Volvo is in. She asked him to take a ride, wich he does with my lady while I take care of other preparations (we're a couple of hours away from leaving for the USA with the family).

She comes back mad! The mechanic sat at the wheel, brought the car to 102 km/h and says (in french): "Well that's obvious, Madame. That's your driveshaft (this last word in english)" So my wife does not know what he's talking about untill he says: "what we would call in french: arbre de transmission" She was really mad! We asked the week before to have this exact part checked!

Anyway. Everyone at the garage was mad at the guy from customer service who did not do his job. And we left on vacation knowing our driveshaft was a weak link in our beloved 850.

Back from the beach. We get the car to that same garage to have the T-belt changed and ask them to take the shaft apart to see if it's gone and need to be replaced or if a simple maintenance could save us the expense. Good news on the phone, your universal joint is in good shape we put everything back in place and the vibration is almost gone... I pick up the car after work and after the garage closing hour. I drive the car to the highway and yes, actually, I think it's almost gone from 102 to 110 km/h... but my car feels like a helicopter between 60 to 100 km/h!!! The noise is much louder and at lower speed! It does not really vibrate as much as sing its sorry tune.

The guys at the garage are just as mad as we are. We did not pay for the "job" on the shaft but now we're stuck wtith a very noisy car... I looked around, made a few calls and it seems pretty hard to find a place that are equiped to rebalance a driveshaft. The garage says there is no danger of breaking something else with that mess, but somehow I don't trust my friends so much anymore...

Hope this wordy testimony helps you in the search of a solution. At least it helped my sanity by sharing my emotions

Hugo.

hjself · Post by **hjself** » 16 Sep 2004, 08:10

I had problems with minor vibrations/noise from the front suspension in my '94 850 Wagon. I eliminated the problems after I replaced the Struts, Top Strut Spring Seats ( rubber ) and the Anti-Sway Bar Links. Also, there is the possibility that the problem of the vibration may be coming from an out-of-balance condition in one of the front hub/rotor assemblies. There might be some foreign object lodged in the ventilation ports of one of the rotors which could cause vibration due to being out of balance. Or, perhaps, one of the rotors/hubs has been struck by an object during driving ( a large rock, etc ) which has either bent the part slightly or has removed some of the metal thus causing an out-of-balance condition. My experience has been that it does not take a tremendous amount of wear on front suspension parts before noises and vibrations, however minor they may be, from occuring.

JJ2K · Post by **JJ2K** » 23 Sep 2004, 11:40

I have a 2000 S70 with 72K and have the same front end vibration problem. I did the tire balancing thing, replaced the tires, had the transmission serviced, replaced every single motor mount (front hydro, rear hydro, right, top rear torque, and front bottom torque - they were all dryed out and cracked for some strange reason), replaced sway bar links, complete brake job with new discs on front and rear, and finally replaced the tie rod ends. The tie rods ends were the only thing that made a slighlty smoother ride, but the front end still shutters on the highway. Bottom line - the S70 is junk and overly sensative to wear and age. I'm sure it has something to do with the hubs, control arm or strut housing - but I'm not dumping another cent into this piece of junk. I wish I had my 1988 760 Turbo with 188K miles on it - it was 1000X a better car! This S70 is my 4th Volvo, but the first FWD one. Will never buy a Volvo again if they remain FWD.