First Volvo questions!

[Thecraig]

Hi all, thanks for having me. I’m hopefully picking up my first Volvo at the weekend and have a couple of questions ahead of it. Have tried to have a read through the guides and searched for a lot of the information I was after but still have a couple of questions I’m unsure about…
The car I’m looking at is a 2003 S60 2.3 T5 geartronic.
1st up are the gearboxes good and strong? I’m wanting to get a remap done soon as I can which should see around 300bhp as long as it’s not going to cause imminent failures. The car is low mileage with excellent service and maintenance records.
Secondly, and this is a big potential deal breaker for me, what are my options when it comes to replacing the stereo and phone in the car? The car currently has the phone keypad built into the dash to the left of the stereo controls (where the pocket/cup holder thing usually is) and a SIM card slot and the advert says it has navigation however there isn’t a screen and it also has parking sensors fitted. I’ve seen references to there being error messages when disconnecting or removing the phone system, and that there could be problems caused by that?
I was hoping to just replace the whole thing with a Sony apple CarPlay double din screen I already have but believe there is extra cables needed to patch the parking sensors as well as the potential issues over the inbuilt phone system.
Can anyone advise on the actual option available for this? Having good phone system and audio streaming is pretty essential for me.
Finally any other quick advise anyone would like to throw out at me would be greatly recieved, although I have looked through the guide sticky already.
Thanks again!

[Thecraig]

Here is the current stereo system for reference

[stuart bowes]

the screen pops up out of the middle of the dash above the stereo, I can see the top of it in the picture.. whether it works or not though is another matter

if it isn't working not a major loss really there's other options

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showt...highlight=Sony

if you're planning to do stuff with it, and keep it a while, you definitely want VIDA which is software on a laptop and requires a hardware unit to connect via the ODB port

[marcb]

Check if the gearbox oil has been changed. But if it's shifting OK then it's probably OK.

The satnav may not work and in any case the map disc will be old.

Instead of ripping out a good system you could connect a gadget to it that connects to your phone and/or to a USB stick with audio files. Have a look at Grom Audio - I just use the USB stick for 1000s music MP3s but you can also have Bluetooth stream from your phone and use it as your satnav of course. It also keeps the steering wheel controls in play. There are two choices -

USB iPhone Android Car Kits
Bluetooth Hands Free and A2DP Car Kits

The second doesn't have the USB for MP3 sticks and you can add Bluetooth streaming to the USB version.

https://www.gromaudio.co.uk

[Simmy]

call in at southport auto center volvo independant .just near southport collage .