I need help figuring out what's wrong with my suspension. Lately when I hit potholes on the road it feels like I am practically slamming my car against the pravement. I have aftermarket low profile tires and 17 inch wheels but I have only noticed this problem recently. The car feels quite normal under smooth roads and tiny potholes but whenever I hit a midsize one on the freeway I feel like it's bottoming out. This can't be good for my engine mounts. Like I mentioned in an earlier post I have 120k miles on the car so it's possible things are worn. Is it the structs that are broken? I have pushed my car up and down and it seems to dampen at a good rate. Someone mentioned the subframe brushing for another post does anyone know where this is?

I am located in Orange county in Socal and I have been bring my car to Dr. Volvo for maintance in the past year. They are great people however they aren't cheap. Does anyone have recommendation for a good indep Volvo master mechanic I can take my car to? For example, I have an slight coolant leak on the radiator hose and it's going to be roughly 400ish USD to replace.

I have tallied up my maintance cost and discovered I have spent close to $6700 on maintance for the past 2 1/2 years for 60,000 thousand miles. Does this seem normal? (A lot of the cost come from putting on close to 25,000 miles a year, performance tires.) My engine mount keeps failing, rotors, and replaced the ignition key mechanism. So far the new slotted/frozen rotors I got are holding up.

Funny thing is I am considering a new car but I still want to keep this Volvo despite what a money pit it has been.

You should buy mine, its the black S70 in the same R9 parking garage, and, I just had the spring seats replaced, helped with handling.

I have a 98 V70 T5 with 120k mi. and have noticed this crashing/banging problem on lousy roads. I think it's due to a combination of stiff suspension, low profile tires & possible defective spring seat. If you hit a pothole hard enough, you'll actually compress the low profile tire all the way to the rim, thus the crash/bang sound & feel. You can also dent a rim. One disadvantage of low-profile tires.

Since you have 17" wheels, I would guess that would make it worse.

I still have the original OEM struts at 120k mi. but just fixed a loose pass. side spring seat. It was knocking pretty hard over low speed bumps. A way to test this is to raise the hood, grab the top of the strut (the ~3" round metal disk) and see if you can twist it. If you can, the spring seat is history. Also, pull it from side-to-side, there shouldn't be any movement whatsoever. If this is loose, it will bang around everytime you hit a pothole, generating noise.

Finally, the cost of your repairs does seem quite high to me compared to central Tx. Then again I've heard everything costs more in SoCal.
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1998 V70 T5 110Kmi; Previous car: 1985 SAAB 900T, 254kmi

At 120K you are probably due for struts and springs seats, pretty common ailment on that car. I own and operate my own Volvo Indy shop in Fountain Valley on Harbor Blvd and have no doubt that I can provide you with the level of service you are used to and do so at a considerable savings. If you'd like, give me a call at the shop this week and I can set you up an appointment to take a look at your car, I won't charge you anything just look at it.

Mark Stites
Swedish Ind. Auto Service
714-839-7911

"it seems to dampen at a good rate" The only acceptable rate is one. It should not even jiggle after pushing down on a fender, down and up. finished.
You may want to replace your engine mount with a poly one, the next time it fails. There are various suspension bushings that dry up with age and get hard, and those could also account for your loud bumps.
New shocks and struts after 120K miles is not an unreasonable expense.

Be very careful, Volvos can become habit forming.

Klaus
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(V♂LV♂s 1975 164, 1995 854T, 1998 V70R)