As anyone knows that has more than 50K miles on this car is likely aware, Volvo is incapable of producing durable rubber parts.

I thought I had already replaced every rubber part on the car (many more than once, when I discovered another one that needs routine replacement. A phone call from my wife after I'd left for work alerted me to the fact that my car had left a significant puddle of oil on the garage floor. Checking underhood, I found the engine bay completely soaked in engine oil, the oil dipstick popped about 1 1/2 inches out of its receiver tube, and the level down about three quarts.

The apparent root cause: The rubber o-ring on the dipstick was hard and dried-out, offering no resistance when the dipstick was pushed into the receiver tube. A couple of recent banzai runs were apparently all that was required to pressurize the crankcase sufficiently to pop the dipstick out of it's tube.

Another visit to the Volvo dealer where the parts manager offers me wholesale price on parts out of pity, and keeps apologizing for the dreadful quality. The parts manager ascribed the short life of Volvo rubber components to the fact that the car's parts are designed to be readily recyclable. It's good to know that Volvo was thinking about social responsibility given the propensity of their parts to require routine replacement.

Anyway, this is the only repair item I've ever come across with this car that I'd classify as minor, but part of the continuing education of the S80 ownership experience. In 35 years of vehicle ownership I really never thought about maintainance of my oil dipstick, but its an apparent necessity of S80 motoring.

Changing the o-ring is easy, and (miraculously for a Volvo) inexpensive, and it can save you the necessity of having to steam clean your engine bay, and your garage and driveway.

Currently I change the engine oil and filter every 3,000 miles with synthetic oil, and at the same time change the rubber o-ring on the oil filler cap to help prevent oil seepage out of the oil filler neck that routinely occurs with the substandard rubber seal. It looks like I'll also need to lay in an inventory of dipstick o-rings for routine replacement with oil changes.