People do forget to grease the door hinges and then complain that the check strap takes tooo much stress and breaks at the weld. It is a poor design, granted, but the plastic rollers do need white grease at least once a year.

The shift lock problem is probably at the rear of the keyed portion of the lock. There is a cable that is supposed to move, visible when you remove the clamshell cover over the steering cover. Just add a drop of oil, not WD40, and work the cable end a little.

The turn signal sounds like a minor adjustment problem. After the clamshell is off, check the notch on the steering column and the catch on the signal switch and make sure they line up properly.

As to the lamination problem, do a search on door panels and have fun reading.

Klaus
--
Common sense trumps a PhD

I'm one of those owners who bought a V70 new and whose door panels delaminated after 5 years. Volvo NA behaved like real shits for customers whose cars were out of warranty. Their cheap, mean-spirited attitude convinced me to never buy a new Volvo again. Maybe this will change when Tata Motors or another company buys the operation.

Glen:
Happily I haven't yet run into the door panel condition, or the sticking shiftlock(well, maybe once or twice), but the non-cancelling turn signal HAS required some attitude adjustment. Let us know if you find something interesting when you get into the innards of the switch, will you? I just can't get motivated toward a tear-down at the moment, just having gotten adjusted to an engine replacement in my '88 760 - another story entirely.
But back to the V70: here are a few more items I've run into in the 3 years that we've been running the model. Driver's window giving off a muted 'snap' when running down -turned out to be the window edge guide at the latch end of the door. I bought a new one from my dealer, and found that it was much more robust at the break point than the original, suggesting to me that this was a common occurrence which Volvo had decided to remedy (?). Not too difficult to replace - just a few tricky bits once the door liner was removed.
A possible result of this problem was the door edge warning light being dislodged. I couldn't get it to stay in until I noticed that the door edge metal was bent just enough to prevent the light module from clipping securely in place. A wee tweak was enough to reshape the edge, and no problems there since.
You didn't mention the light switch for the rear hatch, which in my case seems to react to "extreme" temperature swings, preventing the interior light from going off automatically, and preventing the remote locking system from functioning. There's a great deal of info scattered through the site, which you might want to have a look at.
Finally, I'm still in the middle of finding a suitable repair for the nut-plate which secures the limit strap( for lack of a better term) which prevents the door from swinging too far open, and stressing the hinges. The plate is welded to the door frame and the tension on closing appears to overstress the weld over time. This problem too has been well documented on this site, and, in my opinion, is worthy of investigation before damage becomes evident.
I certainly didn't intend to get so verbose, but wanted to cover the topics adequately...Hope this helps.
Garth

I can only commiserate

I've have all three problems

The first one is ignored (tear those floppy-flappy door panels out!)

the 2nd one causes me to beat up the gear selector until it releases my key (actually, I've paid money to have this switch replaced, so I don't really man-handle it -- much as I'd like to)

and third, yeah those blinkers go for miles and miles, irritating everyone in the vicinity, but so what? It notifies them that they are in the vicinty of a 98 FWD Volvo (is there any other kind?)

,,,Other issues with the 1998? ABS board! Headlight switch meltdown? Various door light switches? Squealing rear brakes (not unique to this model--it just needs meticulous attention)...

So maybe none of this is the important stuff--the '98 is still a very safe car in my estimation...but it is also really annoying!