C70 T5 shakes when accelerating
 

the car has i think always shaken under hard acceleration but while it was a non common thing, it started getting worse and suddenly quite rapidly. Almost any acceleration has the car shaking horizontaly.

any ideas whats wrong with the thing? at this point i dont want to use it as its really quite worrying and will be going garage as soon as it can but they are rather busy just now.

Several things should be checked for this such as wheel damage, tyres etc, but certainly on the C30 T5 any shaking on acceleration is often down to the driveshafts needing replacing. Do a search for driveshafts and hopefully a few posts on this will pop up. On the C30 many have tried aftermarket driveshafts without too much luck, so OEM Volvo ones seem to be the way forward but they are not cheap...!

I lived with the 'vibration when accelerating' thing with my T5 for years, only slight mind you.

Renewing the rear lower engine mount/stabiliser helped.

Good condition lower wishbones help.

Track rod ends must be sound.

Good tyres up front help a lot - I've had out-of-shape tyres produce vibration and out-of-balance tyres too.

To be fair I think these chassis are so sensitive the slightest thing not right send the whole thing out of spec.

My car has never felt so 'right' since fitting Michelin Pilot Sport tyres - it just instantly settled down.

yeah seems most people saying driveshaft, though the thing was MOT'd like 2 weeks ago. shouldnt that have been picked up?

Short answer..... Nope.

Any excessive play in bushings would be or if the CV boots in the driveshaft was split. I don't think there's anything else in the test that would identify vibration.