Little background here....

Purchased a '04 NA v70 with 42,500 and a Volvo used car 100k certified warranty last year.

Just replaced their Kumho tires and noticed both REAR rotors were grooved/scored, yet there was plenty of meat on the outboard pads. The tire store sales person remarked that he thought the calipers must be sticking....both REAR sides? Oh well. The fronts were fine.

I took the car in to the Dealer with 77k today because it DIED twice this past week at the stoplight. It restarted and stumbled for a while then seems to have evened out over the course of driving.

Although it definitely feels sluggish, especially with the AC on, during the humidity here in Michigan. So I delivered the car this morning with both complaints.

The dealer can find nothing to cause the drive-ability problem. He says it seems to be fine.

The brakes he says are worn to metal on metal on the inboard side and I need to spend $475 to fix them. I did not ask for details on how they arrived at $475. I did ask him about the cause, and the calipers, and he said the calipers are fine and it was the guide pins that were corroded that caused the calipers on both sides to hang up.

Perfectly plausible reason for the condition but I felt the guide pins should not fail on both sides SIMULTANEOUSLY. He said guide pins are a maintenance item that are serviced with brake pads and rotors, and that if they are lubed properly they do not corrode. He told me when the brakes are serviced the pins need to be serviced too. Thing is...THEY did the brake job at 35k. They even have it on the service history.

He says it does not matter and they are NOT responsible for a MAINTENANCE item.

I think they are responsible....am I off-base? I think they need to back up their work and their car.

Plus I have a car that is certainly going to die out and stumble again...and they cannot find out what is wrong. The advisor says the throttle in this car is not the same as the earlier models and there are no problems and I am looking in the wrong place.

It looks like I am doing brakes this weekend...but I would rather have them take care of this.

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I'm stuck on Volvo and Volvo's stuck on me....

if you have 40K on the brakes and the pins are corroded, I am with the dealer on this one (rare that that happens!). Grease on steel pins on Michigan roads is not a great rust inhibitor. If this happened 5K miles later I would be with you. The truth probably is that the pins were marginal and probably too light of a grease was used and not enough. Then again, you could have been driving on highly salted roads with lots of road spray and sand spray that wore it off. It's a tough call. I always use a soft wire brush on mine and make them shiny again. Then I use that plastilube brake grease which is very dry and thick. If they are real bad, I get new ones for $10.

I agree it's a tough call. But if I were the original owner and paid the dealer for the brake job, and had to redo everything after 40k highway miles, I would maybe look for an offer from the dealer. If the pins are cheap maybe they ought to be changed out at 40k miles. I realize now that I am stretching it a little.

I think the pins WERE marginal, like you said, or they were cleaned without complete consideration of what would happen if they failed to slide.

The dealer and I came to compromise because I figured I got part of a good brake run on the rears and I'd like to stay friends. They want it friendly too.

I think that with the extended warranty they look for Volvo to pick up the slack. If Volvo won't then they resist taking it on. After all they already spent the money they made on the car.....lol
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I'm stuck on Volvo and Volvo's stuck on me....

It might be part of the "service", but if the mechanic doesn't clean the slide pins who will be the wiser?
I use a brass bristle brush to clean any black off the pins and then coat them with silicone brake grease.
You might want to bleed the brakes or flush the fluid, another service item the dealers seldom do.

As to the stumbling, are you running with original plugs? Did you tank up while a tanker truck was filling the tank at the gasoline station? If your idle fluctuates when the AC kick in, check the idle control motor for dirt. It is almost time to replace the fuel filter.

Klaus
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I still miss my 164