S70 AWD with transfer case(angle gear) & rear drive shaft removed

Front wheel drive only works well except in the snow. I beleive the computer still thinks the car has all wheel drive and allows the front wheels to slip as the rear drive should take over. Can this be changed or made to think it’s ft. wheel drive only? We get a lot of snow in colorado!

Do you use winter tires?

No!

Then you’ll have traction issues, regardless of whether the traction control is working. I’d get a set of winter tires on rims, and not worry about fiddling with the car’s computer. That way you won’t run the risk of frying the computer, or disabling something important.

The “hacked” car is not working as designed.

The only suggestion I have is get a set of winter tires so hopefully the front wheels do not slip. However when they slip and car thinks it sending power to the rear wheels and it fails.

Maybe otherwise wait for a sunny day when roads are clear, lots more of those days in CO.

Why was the rear driveshaft removed in the first place?

It’s possible that the computer is trying to send power to the rear wheels and when it discovered that the rear output shaft is spinning freely it cuts power as it assumes that all the wheels are slipping. Try cutting off the traction control, I don’t know if it’s fully defeatable on this car or not.

Yes,the rear driveshaft was removed at the same time as the angle gear was removed.

I beleive you are correct with the traction control; any idea on how to do it? Is there sensors on the front drive shaft or transmission to control the traction system?

There are sensors that detect wheel slippage. In some cars, these sensors are tied into the ABS computer, and if the sensor is removed or if it fails the anti-lock braking will be disabled. You never did mention why the rear driveshaft was removed.

angle gear self destructed & destroyed the spline in the transmission; this left 2 choice’s

  1. replace the transmission and angle gear (transfer casse)
  2. remove angle gear and rear drive shaft ( alot less $)

Seems to me that the right thing to do would be to get the car repaired properly. Expensive repairs are par for the course with Volvo ownership. A car like the newer V70 has alot of computer controled gadgetry and many of the systems are dependent on each other in order for the car to work properly. In a simpler AWD system like the one used on older Subarus you can simply pull a fuse and the car becomes FWD (with the weight and driveline loss than comes with AWD). Unfortunately the Haldex system in Volvo is more complex. And you’ll just run into one problem after another trying to get it to function flawlessly as a FWD car.

Your Volvo is now a “Parts Car”…Time to drive down to Denver (or Grand Jct.) and pick up an F-150 4WD…