A website idea for mechanics to share knowledge on specific car models

No, Volvo was owned by Ford. Ford did this. Ford bought Volvo and discontinued the highly reliable and popular Volvo 240. They also reduced the quality!

The user you are replying to is just trying to disrupt the conversation. I appreciate your stepping in to clear it up, but I wonder if it just encourages them? Obviously their answer is completely useless.

How about Matthew’s Volvo site? https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/

He has made videos and done a nice job collecting a lot of information and putting it in to one place! Rather than start from scratch with a new site, I would rather add to his site if possible, or make a similar site that adds some things that Matthew’s site lacks.

carcomplaints.com is a nice site. But there is the problem where anyone can post on there. You get people on there who never change the transmission fluid, floor their car from a stop at every green light, and then say they’re never buying another such and such car when the transmission goes out at 110k miles. Or they use the wrong fluid or replacement parts, or let a shop mess up a repair, and then try to blame the car maker. Or it gets over heated and the head gasket is trashed, and they blame the car maker again. But over all it is a good site.

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Actually NO. Volvo’s quality IMPROVED under Ford.

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The “highly reliable” Volvo was a myth. Take it from someone who learned the hard way.

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Some things did, but it was in exchange for the typical Ford problems like increased small collision damage, and the never ending issue with Ford and bad transmissions. So you have a more reliable car with a bad transmission … That kind of puts you in the same place.

What the hell does that prove. Sure, Volvo still had problems…So what? But they were far fewer than before. Ford increased quality in Volvo.

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The Volvo 240s would go 500k miles. From something like 2001-2005 the automatic transmissions they used in Volvos would mostly all need replacement during the normal life of the car. That’s an expensive repair.

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How many have you seen do that? I searched Cars.com and autotrader.com, found a total of 15 for sale, one with 320k miles, all others under 250k. Same thing on Ebay.

People that drive that much are less likely to sell it in working condition I think. It’s an old car now. If you had looked 10 years ago there would have been a lot more for sale.

The rear main seal would blow out and run the engine out of oil on a lot of those, but that was not allowed to happen, the engine would go 500k.

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And you looked? You know for a fact of many 240 Volvos with 500k? I doubt it.

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Hey another “mechanic recommended maintenance item” from Tom and Ray themselves. Take a look here: Car Talk: Valve adjustment essential on some Hondas

Honda says in their maintenance schedule to only adjust valves when there is unusual noise, but Tom and Ray say it should be adjusted at 90k preventatively because it’s very cheap, especially compared to the damage that might occur if valves are unknowingly out of adjustment because it doesn’t always cause noise! Something like $175 vs $2500

Won’t find that info in the printed manual unfortunately. They’ll tell you to wait for noise before adjusting valves

Thanks for the ideas. They sound good. Maybe if anything somebody could set up a a website that just compiles links to Matt’s Volvo site on one convenient page.Doesn’t makesense to redo everything from sscratch like you pointed out

I mean, it might be 1/100 chance of happening, but it sure happened. Pine Auto Diagnostics on YouTube made a video of it ("Grenaded" Volvo Turbo...BARELY RUNNING?? (50k-mile Follow-Up) - YouTube), and luckily it didn’t completely destroy the customer’s engine. And there are commenters who confirmed problem.

I think the spirit of Car Talk or other car help places is to help car owners avoid expensive issues or improve their life in some way through saving money, so it’s worthwhile to inform them of preventative fixes that are fairly cheap but can lead to huge problems if ignored. E.g. oil changes is one we all know; everybody says change oil. But there’s more obscure ones like the aforementioned preventative Honda CR-V valve adjustment.

@xuandy129_181104 This mutipule links to web sites just might have people think you are Spamming . Fandom does not have anything to do with a vehicle forum.

Websites with the kind of information requested by the OP do exist but they are not free. Mechanics share this kind of info on, for example:
http://my.alldata.com

The trouble with factory manuals is that they are written by the person who designed the system. That person knows how the system works, but does NOT know how it is likely to fail. Only experience will reveal common failure modes. The designer therefore creates diagnostic procedures that will identify any failure via a logical (and usually lengthy) process. No one wants to pay $150 an hour for some mechanic to uncover and probe 20 different wires, painstakingly measuring voltages and resistances. If the mechanic can quickly identify the three or four most likely suspects, and replace all of them, the mechanic AND the customer will likely come out time and money ahead. The websites above allow you to look up make/model and symptom and lists the parts that ended up getting replaced, sorted by order of frequency.

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Isn’t this precisely what this site is for, to discuss car problems and their solution/possible solutions?

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My father in law bought a Volvo diesel sedan in the 1990s and was sorry he did. The reliability was awful.

Re Ford and maintenance, I maintained fleet vehicles, several my own, for over 30 years and Ford vans in the mid 79s with I-6 300 engines were serviced monthly at an average mileage over 7,500. Those truck engines all ran without fail for 300k miles. One was sold running well with over 400k miles.

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Folks here could probably go on all day about mistakes/miscommunications/ ambiguities they’ve run across when referencing car repair manuals. One common problem I’ve observed is the person who wrote the section I’m reading doesn’t seem to have read the rest of the manual, and use different nomenclature than what the rest of the manual uses. Just the other day I was referencing a section on Ford carburetor diagnosis. It said (roughly) " If the engine hesitates at the beginning of accelerations … check (1) fuel level in fuel bowl (2) accelerator pump (3) an obstruction in the air valve … " The problem is that there is no mention anywhere in the rest of the manual about there being an “air valve” in an Ford carburetor. Do they mean the throttle valve? Do they mean the fuel bowl vent valve? Both those parts are shown in the carburetor section of the manual, but not a single mention of the phrase “air valve” as pertains to Ford carburetors. I’m presuming they mean the fuel bowl vent valve, b/c I had a hesitation problem on my Ford truck one time, turned out to be due to a blocked fuel bowl vent.

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That’s a really big oversight. It would be nice if they identified parts by number on a diagram. My Haynes manual doesn’t have diagrams of locations of parts, so they’ll say the name of a part but it’s a bit of a guessing game where it is supposed to be

So you still don’t agree with looking outside of the factory manual? Tom and Ray mentioned some important info that was not in the factory manual/owner’s manual, the Honda valve adjustments. There should be a free place to find this info easily in a centralized location, not a paywalled website meant for mechanics.

Again, here is where Tom and Ray say Honda’s guidance on valve adjustments is inaccurate: Car Talk: Valve adjustment essential on some Hondas

And here is a free, popular website that lists common issues with the car in question, 2008 Honda Element. They don’t say anything about the valve adjustment. 2006 Honda Element Problems and Complaints - 10 Issues