How Do You Say "Unicorn" in Swedish? 1998 Volvo S70 T5 Manual

[Jake]

Last year, I bought a 2001 BMW X5 3.0i for $1500 and took it off-roading with some friends in a Top-Gear-esque sort of challenge. It was fun and we decided to do the whole thing again, but with different cars and a different theme/challenge. This year's challenge is "Cars Your Grandma Aspired to Own" and we are taking them rallycrossing. That's assuming, of course, that rallycross can happen in late August but fingers are crossed.

I was looking at all sorts of options for myself and had only limited my selection by saying "no more BMWs" - I've owned 11 and wanted to branch out. This Volvo appeared on my local (DC) Craigslist while I was idly scrolling during a conference call. It had been posted just an hour prior to my search and I'm sure my email read like some frantic nut. I saw the words "Volvo" "manual" and "turbo" and shot an email off with no more details.

Anyway, the car is 1 of 361 S70s imported with the B5234T3 "T5" engine and manual transmission. The B5234T3, for the uninitiated (like me!) is a turbocharged, intercooled inline five that makes 236 hp and 240 lb-ft.

I bought the car from a guy who had owned it since 1999! The first owner only kept it about a year but put 25k miles on it in that time. It was sold new locally here at Don Beyer Volvo in Falls Church, VA and that dealership put THREE clutches in the car. It has had the same clutch since 25k miles and that second owner which leads me to believe that maybe three-pedal driving wasn't the first owner's forte. 

The second and long-term owner drove the car as his only vehicle for a long time, and then supplemented it with some BMWs. It was never the family car, so the front passenger seat and rear seats look nearly new. The driver's seat has also held up tremendously well. I have a stack of maintenance and repair records going back to the PDI at one mile. The second owner found a shop near his home in Maryland that did most of the work over the last 20 years. I need to call them tomorrow because the one record I don't have is a recent-ish timing belt service. The interval is anywhere from 80-100k miles depending on model year and who you believe, but I want to make sure that's in good shape as it's an interference engine.

More to come after I get it tagged, titled, and check the timing belt. Everything works, including the A/C and heated seats. The dashboard creaks at highway speed, I get an occasional flickering battery light (new battery, only happens if winding the revs out more) and over bumps the front end has a clunk or two. The brakes are fine but kinda soft so probably due for new fluid and perhaps front pads. Oh, and it needs a CV boot on the one front axle.








Oh, and the best part? The car currently has 295,000 miles. My goal is to get it to 300k and beyond, it's too clean to run through a rallycross course one time and re-sell. Might as well have some fun with it for a longer period of time and the P80 Volvos have a ton of aftermarket support through IPD and elsewhere. And parts cost seems reasonable at first glance, too.

[.RJ]

Love this

[D_Eclipse9916]

That brings back memories of high school. One of my friends had one that we took street racing. In our group we randomly had volvo guys (An S60R and one of these).

[Senor_Taylor]

This car is absurdly clean. It looks like it rolled off the factory line yesterday. The paint is baby bottom smooth.

[Jake]

It's at Matthew's dealership (Don Beyer) getting a general once-over. I am concerned that the timing belt is old and these are interference motors, so want to know the condition and frankly don't have time to get my hands dirty this week. So now I'm in a brand new S60 R-Design with a Polestar tune.

Fun facts: I pulled up and parked next to a red S70 w/manual trans this morning at Don Beyer. 170k miles and a little beat inside, also not a T5 so nyahhh mine is faster. My S70 was sold new at Don Beyer and I have the service paperwork from the Pre-Delivery Inspection at 1 mile. So cool.

[xvxax]

Danngggg do i love this. There was also an absurd number of volvos in my general high school friend group that was naturally passed down from our parents. Through that same happenstance I drove a Volvo 960 as my first car. I loved that thing and still have a soft spot for them. Cool cars.

[ScottyB]

no way...those things are super rare birds. love it. i don't know about you guys but a turbo 5 exhaust note is so choice. you might wanna hang on to this one Jake.

[Jake]

Alright so we got it all fixed up. New radiator, new end links up front, new pads/rotors all around. Added a GROM Bluetooth unit to the factory head unit, which takes the place of the CD changer in the trunk but gives me a totally stock look with Bluetooth streaming (and calls, if I run the microphone somewhere). It works great and the factory audio system bangs. Nothing is blown out and it will rattle the mirrors at highway speed. Nuts.



Took some time last Friday to pull the suspension all apart and replace the front struts, rear shocks, and all four tophats/bearings/whatever you call them.

First of all, the Koni Yellows were all rusty and nasty:



All three of them were crumbling as we removed them. This one pictured is the front right and it was the worst. The front left had been replaced with a no-name strut about 30k miles ago.

The front right strut bearing/tophat*had some pretty big play in it, which I suspect was the source of my consistent clunking noise over any road imperfection.

Ran into an issue with compressing the front springs to get the new stuff bolted together. Auto parts stores are not renting spring compressors due to COVID, but Zach had his own spring compressor that looks just like what you'd rent from AutoZone. It got the old struts apart, but could not extend tall enough to compress the springs back down. Turns out he had cut the threaded rods to allow them to fit on his Mk4 Jetta, years ago. Oops.

Some panic-calls later (this was 5 PM on Friday with my car in the middle of their two-car garage where two projects normally live) and I discovered Matt was still at work for the day at the local Volvo dealership. One of his techs was working late and said "bring 'em by" and assembled everything for free in about 10 minutes.



We got everything back together, I got the car aligned this morning (it's easy to knock the toe out when you pull the struts, I guess) and it's all back in the green now according to the printout. Noises are gone and it rides really well now on all new Sachs stuff.

Yay.

[Senor_Taylor]

Even if those compressors weren't shortened, I would NOT have wanted to do those springs by hand. They were way too long and under way too much compression.

[Jake]

Even if those compressors weren't shortened, I would NOT have wanted to do those springs by hand. They were way too long and under way too much compression.

Seriously. They're like truck springs.

[Jake]

Well I did my rallycross in this Volvo and then sold it a few weeks later. It was a great car for rallycross, able to put power down (mostly) even with the open diff. It's a total dog until the turbo comes online at 3500 rpm which means it sucks to drive in the city but at WOT in dirt? All the fun.



It was leaking oil and needed some tie rods and control arms to be "perfect" after the event. I wasn't driving it, didn't really bond with it, and elected to sell it for a profit to a Volvo nerd instead of letting it sit and leak oil in one of my parking spaces. Clay came from Houston, Texas and paid me $3k for the car. It crossed 297,000 miles on his drive home. He's already got it looking like this, which is much sexier than how it looked under my care.





He's happy so I'm happy. I wanted to take some cash and buy another toy but I think the smarter move for now is to work on increasing the flow of press loans and drive my truck otherwise.

[Senor_Taylor]

Very nice.