[Nick44]

Hi Shagged,
Welcome to the Forum, but maybe not got off to a good start?
I don't know if you trailled through the entire thread, it goes back years with many posts.
Volvo UK did do something about this issue, my own V70 Ph2 2001 was recalled by Volvo, and went into the shop and out at no charge to me.
There (if memory serves ) were 2 different types of ETM fitted to these cars, the Bosch one, and the Magneto Marrelli one. Again if memery serves, it was that Magneto Marelli ones that had the problem and it was caused by the carbon from the wiper brushes scoring the flexible track on the stepper motor/ and or/ a build up of carbon on the butterfly valve.
There are in these pages a couple of good cheap fixes for the issue, top of which is just a good clean of the stepper motor internals and a good squirt of carb cleaner in the valve body.
I beleive the easy way to tell which you have is by checking for a little "dot" sticker on the ETM. a yellow one is Magneto Marelli, and green one is Bosch. Further I seem to remember that if you have a yellow sticker with a half green flash then the recall has been done. Alternatly, contact your Volvo dealer and quote the VIN. If the recall has been carried out they will be able to tell you.

In the UK the DVLA keeps a track of who owns what car, and in the event of a recall like this the current owner is notified and invited to their dealership for an FOC inspection. Maybe down under it dosn't work like this - I don't know - so the former owner(s) may not have been notified, or bothered to follow up.

Remember the ETM is just a modern version of a carburetter air-flow butterfly. It works very hard and will of course wear over it's life. You don't say how many miles your new purchase has done, but at that age I would guess over 100,000 miles. My 2001 V70 now has 160,000 on it, and my 2000 S80 148,000. Nothing lasts forever, but that's not bad going is it?

However, I do think JJ101 may have a point. You paid less than £200 for the car, knowing it had a fault.

Fair also to say that Volvo did wriggle quite a lot initially, but did try to put matters right after a lot of fuss from owners and National vehicle agencies. Volvo are not owned by Ford anymore, and have not been for some while. For better or worse the Chinese own them now.

Hope this helps you.