2002 XC70 Tune Up

[Stephen0523]

Hi. I am starting to do more of my own maintenance. I am changing the plugs soon and just finished a transmission flush.
What would be recommended as other tune-up items I should be adding to my list for this car?

Thank You.

Stephen

[coflynn]

Has front-end stuff been done before? If not I'd suggest that over the summer. Whilst you can just wait for stuff to fail, it's probably cheaper to do a complete refresh of everything (tie rods, struts, strut bearings, coil springs, control arms, ball joints) around now. Most of those things require a alignment anyway, and often you need to remove a bunch of stuff to get just one of them anyway. Plus if you are in Canada you'll know that prices here are high for parts, so the best deal is to order for the states. If you're already paying for shipping might as well put a bunch into that order

I'd also suggest checking the lines on your power steering rack (again if you are in Canada we've got a lot of salt on the roads). Mine where very corroded & recently started leaking. If you've got all that stuff in the front-end off it's easiest to replace them then. See my recent thread on this site for photos of what to look for.

When I did this last summer I didn't replace the coil springs as thought they would be OK, but wish I had ordered new ones. They looked not great & I may end up replacing them before they fail as I don't want to kill my new tires.

You can borrow the coil spring compressor for Parts Source. If you're doing this job I HIGHLY suggest buying an electric impact gun (I use Canadian Tire part # 54-3121-6. It goes on sale frequently). Lots of stuck bolts await you, and the impact gun makes life easier as it doesn't 'twist' bolts so badly too. Remember you are saving a ton of $$$ doing this yourself so invest some of that into nice tools to make the job & life easier Also get a set of ratcheting metric wrenches. Canadian Tire has part # 58-1259-4 on sale which seemed to fit most things I needed.

Remember that if you break or round off a single bolt you may be SOL & need your car towed, so it's *WELL* worth investing in the tools. I've made the mistake of trying to be too cheap!!!