Pulling the Trigger

"whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU" (whiskey-business)
05/10/2016 at 09:22 • Filed to: None

Today is the day. Soon, I will have five cylinders of Swedish power in front of me. Thee pedals at my feet. Six speeds in my hand.

...and hopefully no headaches for the near future. Time will tell.I’m excited and nervous for this, but I’ve done all the background checking I can on this S40 and it all seems to check out.

I will update as updates update.

DISCUSSION (23)

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 09:25

Kinja'd!!!

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 09:28

Please get a prancing moose sticker.

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
05/10/2016 at 09:30

Planning on it.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 09:33

Yay! Because they look so good.

Kinja'd!!!

d15b > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 09:35

I don’t want to be that guy , but yeah, have some earth monies to put into the car just in case.

EL_ULY > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 09:37

SWEEEET! Any questions about it let me know homie. Your OPPO Volvo pro at your service sir :] Just use the signal.

Kinja'd!!!

if your first question is, “what goes wrong on these?” or, “are these reliable?” please try to be as specific as possible lol :] For very specific stuff, send me the year and the last 6 digits of the VIN

Cé hé sin > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
05/10/2016 at 09:45

Prancing elk, because Sweden.

TFSIVTEC drivesavolvo > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 09:54

I love my S40, its my first car with AWD after coming from 5 FWD’s in a row, the S40 is such a good DD, super comfortable seats, short satisfying shifter throw, plenty of torque and nicely weighted hydraulic steering, I could go on....

functionoverfashion > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 10:14

My wife had a 2005 S40 T5 AWD 6 speed manual... great car. What do you want to know?

Camshaft Chris: Skyline/McLaren/Porsche Fanboy > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 11:09

Read the description thinking S60R/V70R. Still, S40 is a good car too. Good luck with it!

sn4cktimes > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 12:01

mmmmmm Volvo......

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > EL_ULY
05/10/2016 at 12:55

Year is 2005, VIN ends in 064615, and for a car with 91,000 miles, what maintenance should I do ASAP as a precaution?

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > functionoverfashion
05/10/2016 at 12:56

Mine is the FWD model, T5, and how reliable has yours been?

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > d15b
05/10/2016 at 12:57

Already stashing away a rainy day fund for this thing! Thanks for the heads up though.

EL_ULY > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 13:08

Volvo S40? If so, it shows to be a nice red manual trans, AWESOME!

At 10 year/ 100k we do the timing belt and check the PCV system. Beside that (those being the biggest things) that pretty much it unless the customer had destroyed the interior/exterior of the car or has been taking it off some sweet jumps lol :]

Also, you need some prancing moose badges ASAP!

facw > Cé hé sin
05/10/2016 at 13:12

It’s extremely annoying that Elk is not same animal on both sides of the Atlantic. I say we call the European ones Moose as well, and call our Elks Wapiti or something.

d15b > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 13:13

It isn’t new, something is bound to come up. Like tires, for instance.

facw > EL_ULY
05/10/2016 at 13:14

Heh, I don’t dare ask you about mine. I always assume that when I go to Volvo shops, the staff are like “ugh, some idiot brought in one of those Dutch Mitsubishis...”

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > EL_ULY
05/10/2016 at 13:16

Thanks! Prancing moose badges are on order already, and yes, unfortunately the exterior is pretty beat. The Florida sun was not kind to the car, and neither was the PO who painted a stripe on it. However, PCV was done by the dealer I bought it from, and I’ve stashed away some money for tires and timing belt in the near future. Had my mechanic take a thorough look at the thing before I bought it, and it all seems to have been taken care of mechanically. Thanks for the help!

functionoverfashion > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 13:19

My wife bought it new before I met her and had it serviced at Volvo dealers almost exclusively until I got my meat mitts on it. Here are the things that went wrong:

Some little part of the turbo failed, it was driveable but it did cost about $500 to fix. Don’t remember the actual name of the part, sorry. This might have been around 50k miles.

The CCV/CVV/PCV (crankcase ventilation system) failed - it clogged up with sludge as such modern systems are wont to do. This, in turn, caused excessive negative (positive? can’t recall) pressure and two oil seals behind the timing belt leaked oil. So... timing belt and all that had to be done to fix the problem. I did the PCV/whatever myself but not the timing belt. $700 I think at the dealer all told. This was around 130k.

The A/C compressor would kick on and back off, because the climate control had the A/C come on like, all the time. It drove me crazy and I felt eternally justified when the compressor had issues at like, 75k (very early in my opinion). HOWEVER. I read up on the interwebz and found a brilliant solution of basically shimming the compressor clutch and got a lot more life out of it. The thing still worked perfectly when we sold the car at 140k.

That’s honestly about it. The car was perfectly reliable and a blast to drive. Very comfy seats. great controls, great transmission (manual also). Nice short shifts, although at the time I had only a Honda Accord, a 1972 Ford 3-on-the-tree, and a 2002 Ford F350 6 speed manual to compare it to.

I will say, the car was 90% highway driven as my wife worked in Boston but we lived about 2 hours north of there in Central NH. And she enjoys winding out the gears but she is very easy on her cars. At 140k it still had the original brakes - every single part. It went 70k on its first set of Michelin Energy tires. 65k on the next set.

My biggest complaint, probably by FAR, was the inability to add an auxiliary input other than an FM transmitter. Yeah, there was a way but it was very involved (including the use of - I kid you not - a 9V battery connector on the C pillar) and I never got around to it before we sold the car.

I saw your note below about the car having 91k, when was the timing belt done? If not yet, I would get on that. I will say that my wife’s car went well over 100k on the timing belt BUT it was only a few years old at that mileage.

Anyway, congrats and enjoy!

EL_ULY > whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU
05/10/2016 at 13:28

SWEEET! Besides some sun damage to your clear coat, she seams like a rad example. Congrats again :]

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > EL_ULY
05/10/2016 at 22:53

Thanks man, my shakedown drive is 2 hours up to Michigan International Speedway for Formula SAE competition!

whiskeybusiness NOW A DANGER TO CROWDS NEAR YOU > d15b
05/10/2016 at 22:55

Tires are OK for now, but I know what you mean man.