P80 Chassis Suspension Overview
Video transcript:
"This is Ken with IPD bringing you an overview of the Volvo P80 Chassis Suspension. We refer to these as P80 cars I don't think that's really technically correct. The front-wheel-drive cars that were manufactured by Volvo as 850's, 70's series and V70's 1993 through 2000 pretty much all the same basic suspension package.
A few basic items are the same all the way through and they have the same failure points. The rear suspension on these cars is what we refer to as a delta link, in other words, there are two deltas two triangles which cross over each other move up and down. The upside of that is that there are very few moving parts in the suspension is actually very easy to maintain the downside, this doesn't have the best articulation of any suspension used.
Basic parts springs, delta links, and shock absorbers we don't get a lot of failures on these, there are only four bushings in the entire rear suspension they don't fail very often. There are two bushings where the Delta link suspension mounts to the chassis there's one here one on the opposite the side that matches it and there are two bushings where the two delta links bolt together.
The front suspension on these cars is not a heck of a lot more complicated then the rear it's a very simple McPherson strut design with an AR arm. The control arm is really the primary failure item on these. Problems like the bushings wearing can make the car to deflect under braking and heavy acceleration.
The ball joint on the other end of the AR arm is all one assembly bushings on this end. You can't replace the ball joint, it's too difficult to replace the bushings generally, people replace it as an entire assembly. Later cars use a four bolt style of the mount with four frame bolts that come through the frame to grab the back of the AR arm. Volvo started using these somewhere in 1998 it's not a clean break so if you have a car that after 1997 you want to check which style of AR on your car has before you order.
The only other frequent wear components in the front end of these cars are the hub itself which contains the wheel bearing again you can't replace them wheel bearing separately you have to replace the entire hub assembly. The end lights which fail continuously on these cars and cause a small rattling noise over small bumps. These cars have a typical McPherson strut front suspension up and down motion is controlled like a strut and the spring rotation control by the upper strut mount and the spring seat.
Let's do a little blow apart of them the persons strut assembly you don't want to try this like I'm doing here on the tabletop, there's a lot of power saved up in one of these Springs you need a spring compressor if you're going to take it apart on your workbench at home. The spring contained by the strut are a frequent failure item. What happens is the bushing between the sleeve and the outer surface tears apart the sleeve comes loose, the shaft is no longer indexed in the front mount and that causes all kinds of knocking sounds it's a very high failure component.
Our IPD HD mounts which use a higher content virgin rubber and have more rubber inhere to prevent that. That's the suspension in a nutshell. For these cars if it's time to maintain these parts or if you're considering upgrading, we do have upgrade components for most of these. We have sport coils, several different versions of shock absorbers, and of course our famous IPD anti-sway bars if you have any questions feel free to give us a call."
