Okay...I'm joining the club. Just bought a nice base model '99 V70 w/ 110k. I've been driving it 40 miles a day to work and its a great car. It does need an ABS module which i'll send out to Victor for repair.

So, what's the problem? I washed it up real nice today and gave the engine bay a quick 5 second rinse. It looks much better BTW. I jumped in the car a few hours later and it is running rough. Pulling away from a stop sign the car shudders and stumbles. Come to the next stop sign and it will idle roughly while your stopped.

I turned around, went home and pulled the coils off the spark plugs figuring they would be wet.....BONE DRY. Hmmnnn....well i vaccume the plug wells out just to be sure and put everything back together. I thought i'd hit the highway and get the car warm to dry it out. Car still misses throughout the rev range....pulling away from a stop is still terrible. I did notice that while stopped at a traffic light if I put the car in Neutral (Auto Trans) the stumbling lets up quite a bit. It doesn't completely stop but it becomes hardly noticeable.

So, what did I break, and how much is this going to cost!?

Check the spark plug holes. I bet one or more has water in them from your wash. The spark plug cover is by no means water tight.

1990 744 GLE, 1998 V70 XC

Do you have a check engine light and if so is it blinking. If you have a misfire code, you could have a bad coil. I had the same thing happen to my 99 xc70. I changed the plugs, still had a code for misfire cylinder 1. I swapped the coils on 1 and 2, cleared the check engine light. Took it for a drive, it still ran bad, checked the code, misfire cylinder 2, so I had a bad coil. i ordered a coil from oirelly autoparts $46.99 when it came in it had volvo printed on the top it was a factory coil. I change the coil, cleared the code and it runs great know!
I hope this helps!
Thanks
Dennis

Hey Dennis, I think you may be right. I got the code read...P303, Misfire on cylinder 3. Replaced the plug and it didn't fix the problem. Guess i'll buy a coil on Monday.

Before you buy a new coil, move the coil to #4 and see if the code changes to p0304. Water in an electrical component may last a day or 2.

Klaus
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Please answer, we need to know if the advice is good or bad. The 164 has a new home, all I am left with are 2 turbos :)

i would like to swap it and then see if the code changes to reflect the new location of the questionable coil....but i dont have a scanner and i dont want to drive to the shop again for fear of damaging the cat-converter by driving w/ the mis-fire.

The cat converter is just a warning!!! Ignore that message. Raw gasoline from 1 injector is not going to be a problem. Unless you run it that way for 10K miles.

Klaus
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Please answer, we need to know if the advice is good or bad. The 164 has a new home, all I am left with are 2 turbos :)

Thanks for the advice, i had no idea how much it would take to ruin the cat, and i need it to pass emissions here soon so i was being careful. Good news: Looks like coil#3 is drying out....the only symptom left is an unsteady idle, and even that is intermittent now.

I hope your electrical problems have settled down by now. On the can of spray GUNK (for Europeans, this is a heavy-duty degreaser that you spray on a cool engine and then wash off, thereby allowing the sludge to go into your garden or down the street drain), the instructions say you should immediately start the engine after washing and let it heat up to dry out all moisture. I washed the engine of my 1981 BMW 320i for 20 years and never had any trouble, but I no longer do it because I have read of too many instances where electrical problems followed. I have never tried washing the engines of my newer, heavily-electronic cars.

Well, the problem cleared up late Sunday and man was I relieved. Drove to work fine this morning but then on the way home I got stuck in traffic. Sitting there going nowhere, and the car starts doing it again....runs rough and idle fluctuates. When the traffic would move and the rpms come up the car runs fine....just doesn't like sitting still. I got home and put a new coil in that i had ordered on Sunday just in case. New coil makes no difference. Now what?

Sorry to hear of continuing trouble. Back to my antique BMW: whenever I hear of someone having odd performance or driveability problems with an old car, it typically is caused by electrical fault, often a bad ground. Your 1999 is too young, but maybe there is moisture in the fuse box or some connector. I suggest you laboriously disconnect each electrical fitting you can reach and make sure there is no moisture, dirt, or corrosion anywhere. I can't think of a better way to troubleshoot the problem, but maybe someone else has a solution.

Well, took the car to the shop. Shop cleared the codes and then ran the car to get fresh codes. Although the car was mis-firing the whole time, no mis-fire codes would come up. We put the new coil back in cylinder 3 and the driveability improved a bit but the idle didn't change....still pretty bad. I'm going to try a full set of 5 new NGK plugs tonight.