V70 Shudders, Misfires -> Coils, but how to get started?

[prendrefeu]

Hello all,

At 135k miles my V70 is going through the rounds of issues as it seems they tend to do around that mileage. Just a few weeks ago I had the completely-dead transmission replaced with a used one at 61k (not bad for $2000 installed). Now it seems that despite shifting perfectly well, the car is shuddering when idle, acceleration is delayed or has hesitation and I'm overall running with less power. This was something that happened both before and after the transmission replacement. I'm thinking it's the ignition coils issue, no?

So how do I get started?
I'm looking at this incredible (brilliant!) tutorial on the Bad Ignition Coil Replacement (for the exact same car I have, perfect!)
over here: https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =9&t=27232

But now that I have that bookmarked, can anyone recommend a Code Reader to purchase? Is anyone selling theirs on the cheap?
I'm looking at this one (but only in the UK?):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0593841017

Are there betters ones out there? Better prices?
And where do they hook up into the car? I could not find a page that tells me where the reader connects to the car to read the codes...

I think that covers my initial question, really, about the Code reader. It seems that this forum is a wealth of information once the problem is identified!

Thank you

[DGM]

Look on the left hand side at the bottom of the steering collumn. You should have a small door trap with OBD-II stamped on it. Just open it and the connector is behind.

This link gives more information on the OBD-II subject.

http://www.obd-codes.com/faq/

You can use the search engine of the forum to find more information on OBD-II readers.