BLUE - 2017 Volvo V40 T2 R-Design Progress Thread

[Petey80]

On Tuesday I had another ride down to Ray Chapman Volvo in York for a minor service.

I don't usually do main dealer servicing, but arranged this one as I wanted to make absolutely sure all modules were up to date and take advantage of the included Volvo Assist package for 12 months.

Once again, the whole process was painless. Got there just after 9am and they pretty much took the car straight in.
When handing over the keys I asked them not to wash the car and also have a look at the N/S front corner as there was a weird noise when turning the steering at a standstill.

Luckily there is a little seating area right outside the workshop, so I managed to keep a watchful eye on Blue whilst the technician did his thing.



He proceeded to drop the oil etc and wander round the car. I eventually received a text message with a link to his video and comments on the car.

No major issues were raised and what was, I was already aware of. Rear tyres getting low and all the dics pretty worn out and corroded, especially on the front. I've already got new discs and the new pads are now on their way.

One thing he did raise on the health check sheet was the brake fluid was dark. I thought this was strange as it was recently changed for fresh fluid by them just over a month ago. After telling them this, they pretty much back tracked on their comment on it.

I asked about the noise and the service rep said he couldn't see anything, but would take it for a test drive. I said it is only really noticeable when turning the steering when stationary.
The technician decided, after hearing it, it could be the top mount. Spring wasn't snapped and all other components were fine.

Health Check Report





One other thing that was brought up, the technician thought the wipers were overly streaky and advised new ones. Just over £40 they wanted for new blades. The wipers are new so I politely declined this offer and said they will no doubt just need cleaning. They have seemed a bit naff since the rear bumper was done. Will give them a good clean next time I wash the car.

All in all, another good experience at this dealership was had. It's a nice place to be with free drinks and this time they had pieces of chocolate flapjack. A few really nice cars inside, ones with black paint that had a sparkle to it. Looked really good, but I bet it wouldn't be cheap to fix scratches etc.
They had the odd saloon and estate along with a couple of V40's, but the majority of their cars for sale were the mid and large size SUV's, which as you all no doubt know, is all they'll be selling from now on in the UK.

In and out in just over an hour and back home for dinner time.

Upon my return home I remembered about the My Car MPG readout thing you can look at so took some pics of that





Not too bad for a 2.0 petrol turbo, but to be fair, I don't boot it about.

[Petey80]

I wanted to keep the service going, so today decided I would tackle the pollen/cabin filter and the spark plugs



Started with the pollen filter change first



Thought this would be the quickest and easiest option as when my friend was over, he seemed to whip his filter in and out quite quickly.

Dropped the seat back and got down so I could get a better angle. First thing to do was to take the cover off



No screws, bolts or anything like that, just 2 plastic holding clips to be squeezed in and the cover came off.

Then it was just a matter of grabing the filter and pulling it out. This was SO much easier than it is on the V50. There is no fuse box in the way and the glovebox doesn't need to come out.

Once out it was compared to the new one.



Quite manky compared to the new one. My records show it might have not been changed since 2020??!!!?? At least it's done now.

New one slotted in



Cover reinstalled and job done for another year.

I then thought I'd tackle the spark plugs, but was unfortunately stopped in my tracks as my usual spark plug socket was too big for the new plugs



Thought it was really strange how it didn't fit the new spark plugs as it had fit all other spark plugs I'd ever done on other petrol cars.
Quick call to Volvo to make sure they were the correct plugs and the parts guy said they were as they superceeded the old ones.
Going to pop to Halfords and/or Euro's tomorrow to see if I can get the right socket for them and get them changed over.

To be continued......

[Petey80]

After the spark plug debacle, I went to my local Halfords in search of an appropriate tool to help with changing them.

That went well and got one of these



But the weather held me off this time and did nothing but rain all day.

But today was fine so I got cracked on with the job.



Engine cover was whipped off and I was presented with this



Quite a lot going on there, wires and plugs everywhere!!???

Nice little sitcker with the engine code on though



Sure that'll come in handy at some point.

Time to move onto removing the spark plugs. First up was to unplug the coil plug connectors. This was done using a tiny flat head screwdriver to prise them off. 2nd was to remove the coil plugs



8mm nut/screw, so cracked all of them off and spun them all out





Then I proceeded to pull all the coil plugs out





Lined them all up in the order they were removed. Thought it best to make sure they went back in the same place they came out.

I was then left with this



Then, using my new shiney spark plug removal tool, I got all the spark plugs out



They all looked like this pretty much



New vs Old



No idea when they were last changed, or even if they actually have been changed in the 51k miles she's been driven.

New spark plugs were OE Volvo items



Which by all accounts have superceeded the old ones. They only had a couple of slight differences that I could see.

All put back together and taken for a quick run out. Nothing majorly difference in the drive. Possibly a little more responsive, but other than that, nothing. Not that I was expecting an increase in BHP or anything.

So endeth the full service. Everything changed and logged accordingly until the next time

[Petey80]

My order from Autodoc arrived today.

In the box was;

ATE Brake pads for the front and back, to go with the ATE discs I've already got.



A set of Meyle HD front droplinks



I think the ones on the car aren't too bad, but at 51k miles of use, I doubt they'll last much longer. Thought as I'll be in that area anyway when I change the discs and pads, I might as well install a set of these as well.

And lasty, an absolute bargain that I came across on e-bay

1 Meyle HD rear drop link



I know, I know, why just the 1 when there's 2 of them at the back. Well, I had this one saved in my watchlist and whilst scanning it the other day, it had been massively reduced to the measly sum of £9.97. So I bought it.
I have a number of others saved, but they are priced at £20 and above so will keep an eye on them as there's no real rush to buy a pair just yet.

[Petey80]

Had some spare time this afternoon so decided I'd tackle the front droplinks.

I'm impatient and they're easy enough to be fair, so thought sod it.

Droplinks were Meyle HD



Drivers side first, so got the car jacked up, on an axle stand and whipped the wheel off



Top nut wasn't an issue, quickly zipped off with my windy-gun, 15mm socket. The bottom one however, was a bit of a pain. There wasn't much access to it.

Had to remove the level sensor to get my ratchet onto it



That only took the nut so far then it seized a bit and started spinning the hole thread, so I had to revert to this method



Spanner on the nut and a 5mm allen key socket into the end of the thread.

Made the job take a little longer, but managed to remove it in the end.

Here's the old one vs the new Meyle HD droplink



Quite a bit of size difference between the 2. The main bar is the same thickness, but the ball joint is a decent size bigger. The old ones were pretty worn out and were moved around by hand quite easily. They weren't badly worn though, so weren't giving off the usual audible knock when going over bumps.

New one all installed on the drivers side



Then moved onto the passenger side. Top nut came off so far with the gun, but again seized so had to use the spanner and allen key socket.



Couple of the tools that were used and a comparison shot again



When installing the new droplinks, it became apparent how much chunkier they actually were



Where the OE ones just came straight off/out, these Meyle items were a lot bigger and needed to be coerced into position due to the size of the ball joint area.

Easily sorted and the passenger side one was fully installed



Everything put back on the car, wheels all torqued up and car test driven with no issues rearing their head. That's them good for another 50k miles or more.

Next up all being well, front and rear discs and pads and front splitter.

[Petey80]

My Maxton copy splitter arrived the other week from e-bay

The box was HUGE!!





Of course I had to open it up and have a gander at the splitter









There was a few marks on it that I was hoping were only as far/deep as the protective film that was over the entire splitter.

Flipped it over



A pack of fitting bolts and screws was taped to it



None of which I ended up using when it came to installing it.

And a quality control sticker



And also a fitting instruction sheet, which again was of no use



Through the week, I took a trip up to a friends place that owns a garage and got to fitting it.





My friend had some good self tapping screws, so we used them





All fitted really well and nice and flush to the front bumper. No fettling was required to make it fit or anything.

Got some better pictures the day after











Really chuffed with it. Looks good and finishes the front end off nicely. Thankfully, the marks were only on the protective film and not the actual splitter.

You may have noticed a couple of pictures up, a flag type badge in the middle of the splitter. I had a plan to have that badge along with a moose badge, dead centre of the splitter. It's kind of how the actual Maxton Design splitter is with their logo dead centre.
Unfortunately, the moose badge was too big for the little area of splitter on show, but of course I'd already put the black R badge on and off centre.....
I have now ordered another R badge to be placed dead centre on the splitter, so will take closer pictures to show what is going on there.

Whilst we were on, we also changed the front and rear discs and pads for the ATE stuff I had already purchased.

No pictures of that unfortunately, just finished pictures the day after.

Fronts


Rears (still to bedded in)


Brakes are now sharp as hell. Hardly any force is needed on the pedal and the brakes kick in really well. Just a matter of time for the rears to bed in properly and get rid of the coating that is on the discs.

Next up, caliper painting, but not sure when that will happen????

[Petey80]

I really need to keep of Temu and AliExpress....... I keep ordering loads of random things as they're so cheap.

Most of the time, the items are actually of decent quality.

First up, a couple of wheel brushes



Will be using them tomorrow when I give the car a wash.

Also got a couple of soft interior brushes



I may have got them after watching one of the "Car Cleaning Guru" videos he did. He ordered a load of stuff from Temu to see what it was like and I took note of a couple of bits I thought I'd like.

Which leads me onto my next item



A brush holder that goes on the side of the bucket. This again was one of the items CCG bought that I thought would be really handy.

Unfortunately it came broke. It had a split right down one side of it. Luckily it isn't really a problem as it isn't going to hold water, just brushes.

And lastly



Some blue door edge protective rubber.

I'm hoping to put this on the edge of the splitter rather than the doors where it's intended to go. Other V40 owners have put a body colour strip on the edge of their splitter and it looks really good. I think they use some form of sticky strip and I wanted something a bit more sturdy. Pics to follow when I get it stuck on as it does have a sticky strip inside of it.

Actually, 2 more things.



A Volvo branded tidy bag thing for the boot. Made of cloth material and has velcro along the bottom of it and across the back of it, so it stays in place really well. Currently filled with jumper leads, cloths, socket wrenches and work gloves.

And these



Seat belt buckle covers.



Not sure what spurred me to get these, maybe it was the £1.50 price tag or the idea they were a good item to have, who knows??!!

The car currently looks like the Volvo & R-Design creature has barfed all over the interior at the moment.

[Petey80]

Not done anything in particular to the car really since the last update.

Put a black "R" badge on the front splitter





Kind of copied off the Maxton Design splitter, where they put their logo in a similar position.
Nice little touch though, if I do say so myself.

I was cleaning the interior out the other day and noticed this on the drivers side front car mat





A big dirty hole had been worn in where my heel sits/moves...... A previous post I made showed I contacted the seller and they weren't interested. That's what you get for buying cheap.
I think I'll save a bit of cash and treat Blue to some thick carpet ones from carmats4u.

Anyway, took the front mats out and binned them and then put the rubber ones in that I'd purchased a while ago.





Really decent quality. My only issue with them is, depending on where my clutch foot is placed, sometimes my heel catches on the grooves of the mat, so doesn't slide back when I'm lifting the clutch.
I'll deal with it for now as it's only a matter of moving my foot to the right a little bit and it isn't a problem. Otherwise I'll get some official Volvo ones.

After my mechanic friend and also a Volvo Tech said my weird suspension noise is no doubt the top mounts, I decided to get a set of new ones.



Of course suspension components can only be bought from 1 manufacturer







Bilstein. I'll either put these on if the noise gets any worse or they become an advisory or something, or I'll keep them until I eventually upgrade the suspension.

Back to work full time now, it's winter, the car is filthy. She's driving mint though (touch wood). No issues of any kind so will see how she handles the coming winter months.

[Petey80]

Not done anything to the car of late. Just been driving it.

It's been cold, wet, freezing etc. etc. and I finally got the chance to give her a clean.



Usual procedure was done, with the added extra of a citrus pre-wash with some Valet Pro stuff. I do think I need to invest in a more powerful pressure washer though.

Obligatory clean and shiney shots















Desperately in need of a full clay, polish and wax when the spring hits and I have a day or 2 spare to do it all.

I've also agreed to service a work colleagues car in the new year. A black V40 D2 2.0 diesel, which he says he hasn't had serviced in around 5 years......!!!???

Hopefully all goes well with that. Got all the service parts from e-bay and am just waiting on a new sump plug and to confirm a date to do it. Pics to follow of that.

Hope you are all well, happy and looking forward to the festive season!!

[simboc2004]

A great thread. Thanks for all the hard work. Particularly liking the paler silver on the rear splitter trim - the standard silver doesn't stand out from the metallic grey on our car, so that needs doing at some point.

About to do a few of your additions to my 2017 D4, but, as it's my wife's car, I have to tone down all the R design "stuff"! Her 55,000 mile car has two broken front springs, so I'm currently building up some new front shocks with new springs - I'm going for Eibach pro-kit springs to remove the "jacked up" look the car has currently (despite the 18" wheels) and new Sachs shocks (as used by Volvo - but cheaper!). Will also be painting the front callipers with yellow Hammerite (so much better than calliper paint) and adding R Design calliper logos. Needs to be a quick job as the car is always in use - and the MOT looms late in February...