Volvo 740 Gle

['956Wheel]

Spent most of yesterday changing the wheel bearings on my daughters car... yes most of the day. "Dad, its goes click, click, click". The left side was "greasless", the bearing came out in pieces!



Now, the set back. Seems Volvo does things different, that is the seal is simply pushed onto the spindle and seals against the inner face of the rotor. The seal has a "flared out" piece of rubber that goes against the area of the rotor outside of the bearing bore. It does not press in the rotor like a "normal" one. Also they changed the O. D. by 1/4" and this created a part hunting nightmare. No "update" was noted in the part numbers.



Anyone ever seen this, I thought highly of these cars but I do not understand what they were thinking with this odd way of doing things.



Mike

 

[emarsh]

Sweden has more engineers per capita than any other country in the world. This means that they find new methods of re-inventing the wheel so those engineers have something to do. Sometimes the idea is better, oftentime just "different". What is does is insure that you only buy genuine Volvo parts, since no one else wants to retool for "their" design.

No disrespect intended, I am not associated with Volvo or any other car/truck company.

 

['956Wheel]

emarsh,

You could be right on this one, I had no idea on the engineer per capita numbers. Often it seems some countrys are reluctant to change, remember how long it took the U. S. to go to the "little car" idea.



Mike

 

[homeka45]

My wife bought a volvo 745 last year, over the past year the speedo has stopped working along with the ac. A water leak has begun due to an interior seal failing, so we now have to cover the car when it rains, and it rains a lot in Hilo. We took it to one of the best ac shops in town and the guy says he doesn't work on volvos, he usually advises the owners to either sell the car or learn to live without the ac. Part prices are ridiculous. Never again.

 

[ETOBICOKE]

Volvo Expert

Try calling Volvo Canada here in Toronto, 416-493-3700. There is mechanic on site that does factory service training, and problem solving at this location, they should be able to help you. I used to work for Volvo's (Olofstrom) automation division, and on ocasion would have to make training aids. Can't give you the name of the current mechanic, the one from several years back was Colin Tagnari. Best part about the training center is the mechanic gets a company car, the same one that is used for training, talk about incentive to get the car put back together, and yes is does get taken apart quite extensively. They actualy scrap (crush) these cars when they are finished with them to prevent them being sold.



Neil

 

[merryman]

Quite a few years ago (when I was "into" sucess and looking sucessfull), we bought a M benz. It was a delightfull car to drive and lots of greate features----but, it sure liked to hang around the dealers for very expensive attention. When at 92K miles, it needed a new engine, I said enough and traded it in on a new Volvo; Wow, talk about repairs! Everything on that car had to be rebuilt---repeatedly. FIVE, yup 5 camshafts, and every major componet went belly up at some point>



Got smart and went back to American cars (T-birds) and did not work on a major component for years and years. Actually in 19 years with T-birds, we spent under $300. on repairs total. Still not sure why we changed to Buick.







Vaughn