Discussion
Looking for cheapish estate and found a year 2000 2.4 V70 not to far away, I had an 850 a few years ago and thought the V70 would be more of the same but after lots of searching it seems the electronic throttle module is a recurring problem on all V70's from 1999 to 2001, am I only reading about the bad cars or is it an inevitable pita.
Had a new one on my 2000 T5 @ 87,000 miles £350 fitted by Volvo main dealer,went again 18 months latter part have only done 10,000 miles,Volvo didn't want to know and I had to shell out another £350!.The suspension struts needed replacing at 50k and its had 2 sets of anti roll-bar link arms,a few other minor problems and the auto box has been flushed with new oil takes about 15 liters to do this,at £9 a liter!.The modern cars don't seem as well built as the old ones,will soldier on with our one for a few years but don't think I will buy another one.
Their not all bad,had mine for nearly 9 years and its never broken down always starts,will go off the clock and still looks fantastic @107,000 miles.I think all modern cars are build to a price and are not designed to last forever,at least Volvo galvanise all their cars,all the Mercs and Bemers I see of a similar age are showing signs of rust.
Just bought a V70 04' D5 I would say do it mate I have come from Alfas which I love but even I have to admit this thing feels like granite compared to the cheese and soggy biscuit build of my previous cars , as with most modern cars they all seem to have their niggles ETM etc no used car is a guaranteed safe bet .
I've got a year 2000 V70. It's the last of the "Classic" shape models but has the newer 2.4 VVTi engine with the dreaded ETM (and the newer 5 speed autobox).
Mine's just turned over 100k and it's been faultlessly reliable for the 4 years that I've had it.
Volvos of this era were still properly made - mine has no rust and everything works. It shows no signs of anything giving up the ghost in the near future.
Let's be fair: All cars have their Achilles heel. There's always something that tends to fail first and on the Volvos it happens to be the ETM.
They're certainly no worse than any other car and, in my experience, seem to be better than most.
Mine's just turned over 100k and it's been faultlessly reliable for the 4 years that I've had it.
Volvos of this era were still properly made - mine has no rust and everything works. It shows no signs of anything giving up the ghost in the near future.
Let's be fair: All cars have their Achilles heel. There's always something that tends to fail first and on the Volvos it happens to be the ETM.
They're certainly no worse than any other car and, in my experience, seem to be better than most.
ETM's are rarely problematic if you use a garage that knows how to look after them (that effectively rules out Volvo dealers) - The problems usually arise through poor maintenance and garages not knowing what they are doing - It seems to me to be a bit of an invention of the internet i.e. a rumor has spread because of maybe a few failures
We service stacks of Volvo's with the fly by wire throttles and apart from having a few come in when a customer has first bought a car and it has needed cleaning out and setting up we've yet to have a failure
We service stacks of Volvo's with the fly by wire throttles and apart from having a few come in when a customer has first bought a car and it has needed cleaning out and setting up we've yet to have a failure
blade7 said:
My old 850 was a 2.5 10v, are the 20v cars much quicker ?.
yes and no - the 10valve lump was developed for towing - the 20valve engines lack torque bottom end but they make up for with power at higher revs - the one to go for is the 2.0 20valve - with smaller pistons they are much more willing to rev - I had a 2.0 20v and would freely rev to 7300rpm where as my 2.5 20v would only really do about 6100 - Turbo's are the same they won't rev as freely (My current T5 redlines at 6300 - depends how you like to drive as you can probably tell my 2.0 lived on the red line! - V70 engines are quite far removed from the original 850 lumps they're based on in terms of character and the way the drive - they are far far smoother for a kick offVolvo extended the warranty on the etm to 10 years or 100,000 miles, look on the volvo forums, its documented all over the place.
Thing to look for, is the sticker on the etm itself, white is original, yellow is one of the 2nd edition units, also there is a software upgrade for the unit, that gives it alot higher tolerance before the unit fails and the car goes into limp mode.
Another choice is this
http://www.bba-reman.com/content.aspx?content=volv...
It changes the mechanical ecm for a electronic one, ive never heard of this one failing, but its £250 to have done, as they need your unit off the car, sent to them, with a 2 day turn around.
The etm itself is only £160 from volvo, but it has to be programmed by a dealer, to work with the cars ecu, or it will be in limp mode all the time, but nothing to stop you changing it yourself, then driving to the dealer, the programming shouldn't cost much.
Thing to look for, is the sticker on the etm itself, white is original, yellow is one of the 2nd edition units, also there is a software upgrade for the unit, that gives it alot higher tolerance before the unit fails and the car goes into limp mode.
Another choice is this
http://www.bba-reman.com/content.aspx?content=volv...
It changes the mechanical ecm for a electronic one, ive never heard of this one failing, but its £250 to have done, as they need your unit off the car, sent to them, with a 2 day turn around.
The etm itself is only £160 from volvo, but it has to be programmed by a dealer, to work with the cars ecu, or it will be in limp mode all the time, but nothing to stop you changing it yourself, then driving to the dealer, the programming shouldn't cost much.
Edited by Distorshion wave on Wednesday 8th September 22:41
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