The intermittent rough starting occurred before the spark plug change as well. Thought that the PO may not have had the plugs changed, so I did the change during timing belt change. The plugs are Volvo plugs from a dealership. So, we are talking OE parts, not after market junk.

As for the throttle body cleaning, no idea. Car appears to be dealer maintained by the PO in Colorado, and my son who lives out there (and found the car for me) talked with the dealer who did the maintenance. They gave him the records that remained in their system, and nothing regarding ETM cleaning came up. However, their records only went back about 3 or 4 years.

Coolant level appears steady, and I do not notice any "smoke" coming out of the tail pipe when first starting.

Like I said, the rough starting occurs intermittently. Happens sometimes first thing in the morning. Sometimes when it is warm, sometimes after it has only sat for a few minutes. The intermittency of the problem makes it a bit tricky to track down. Once it starts, it runs smooth and fine. Drives like my other P2 XC-70s.

The wild behavior of the tachometer during cranking (I think I mistakenly said speedometer in my post) has me wondering. Sometimes during cranking the tach will swing up to 2k-3K then drop down. This morning, it swung up to the 2-3k range, dropped back down, and the engine started normal and smooth. However, it did not go to high idle as it normally would with a cold engine. I'm wondering if an engine speed sensor is acting up and causing the EFI to over inject, or something along those lines.

Any other ideas? I figure it is something fairly simple, but what is it?

Gary

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Gary D