2012 Volvo S60 T6

[CCoburn]

Dealership Rip-offs Continued


Picked up my parts at the Volvo dealership and inquired about the ATF while I was there. It's about $150 a gal.  ? if you go genuine Volvo, and if you match the spec at O'reilleys' it comes out to about $35  ​​​​​​​

I think I got the right stuff, but I'll probably dive into the transmission fluid rabbit hole again before I do it just to make sure.

[CCoburn]

Transmission Drain and Fill


Went as expected with a few minor snags along the way:

1. My driveway slopes down towards the street a bit, so I figured instead of using the ramps and a couple jack stands that I could place the ramps at the end of the slope and driving up on that would level the car. Good theory, but at first the underneath of the front bumper wouldn't clear the ramps, so I had to move the ramps towards the incline a bit to solve that problem.

2. The 17mm hex bolt for draining wouldn't budge with my 3/8" drive ratchet, so I used one of my hollow weightlifting bars to slide over the ratchet as a breaker bar - success!! I also used the same method for the T55 fill plug.

3. Couldn't really fit my hand too well in the tight space to grab the fill plug after loosening, so I surgically removed that with some long handle needle-nosed pliers. Not sure where it would have ended up if I dropped it and didn't want to find out.

4. This one is the icing on the cake. When tightening the T40 level plug I felt it starting to round out a little, so I may need to do an extraction on that for the next drain and fill.

I guess a short break and a test drive is up next.

[CCoburn]

Wheel Balancing Continued


I'm a little OCD over this, but I found what appears to be a pretty decent follow-up tweak.

Tires are balanced out when they are brand new, but they tend to lose some rubber and maybe even balance themselves out a bit after a thousand miles or so. The problem here is that the weights that were initially added are static and unchanging.

It's nearly impossible to balance a wheel without first removing the wheel to a balancer to find the exact spot where the weights need to be added(I've tried), but after that it may not be necessary to remove the wheel again for a rebalance.

In my particular case I noticed a slight vibration at around maybe 60 MPH give or take that diminishes above 70 MPH, but if a wheel is moderately to severely imbalanced it may be noticeable at 40 MPH and only get worse at higher speeds.

Even a quarter ounce can make a noticeable difference. I kept getting this recurring feeling that something was a little off, and the other day I felt pretty sure that the front left was the culprit. I didn't even have a knife to pry off a weight, so I pulled it off with my hand - it was easier than I thought it would be.

The above was actually the finalizing of a process I started a couple weeks back based mostly on tire wear and loss of (rubber) weight where the static wheel weights remain static and unchanging which can potentially create a heavy spot where the initial wheel weights were added.

This procedure is mostly prompted by 'feel', so if the ride appears perfectly smooth with no vibration then it wouldn't make sense to change anything.


The tweak:

I started with the front left and moving in a CC direction removed the first quarter ounce weight I came to and repeated for the other three wheels. If any wheel has less than an ounce of weights you can save those for last and do the heavier weighted wheels first.

I would just remove a single weight at a time and drive for a while to see any difference: better/same/worse. In my case it was either the same or better. After a quarter ounce removed from each wheel you can go back and repeat the procedure except move CW around the wheel so you get the weight on the opposite side of the strip - can't do left/right because left on top will be right on bottom.

It's pretty systematic, but in my case I could feel that the front left needed another reduction which turned out to be the cherry on top.

The diameter of the wheels is so small with such rapid rotation that at higher speeds it's like riding on gyroscopes when the wheels are properly balanced. Typically front wheels off contributes to steering wheel vibration and with the rear wheels the seat might shake/vibrate a little.

I'm pretty happy with the results I got here, so I ended up writing about it.

[CCoburn]

Well the Volvo S60 T6 has been hanging in there pretty good lately with close to 150k miles, and lately I'm just thinking what could go wrong next. I will have had it for two years this December, and the only time I ever take it anywhere for service is to get tires mounted.

After writing this and not posting it something odd happened. I was out the other day and my friend calls with a bit of anxious urgency. Apparently unable to get a hold of me because my phone battery died and I took my time re-charging it. She found this small metallic tube and screw right where my front right tire sits in the driveway and was worried it might cause me to get into an accident – I wasn't worried about it. I don't know what it is or where it came from, and it's not like the car is neglected or falling apart because I don't maintain it...

This is what I've done so far since I purchased it in Dec of '22:

1. New engine air filter(easy peasy).
2. New cabin air filter(a real pain in the ass).
3. New front right brake pad(yes, I only did one).
4. Six new spark plugs(side-gapped to 0.037).
5. One new ignition coil(repaired/replaced housing on two others).
6. Painted muffler and pipes(I had some leftover silver flame paint).
7. Repaired broken passenger air vent(maybe caused by excessive cabin temperature).
8. Three oil/filter changes.
9. Transmission drain and fill.
10. And now the even more trivial: yada yada yada.

So one day I just started thinking about horsepower, and more of it, and I suppose driving became more fun after that, so I started doing it more and it became somewhat of a hobby – now the rest is history.

My friend Googled the images of the parts she found, and then unbeknownst to me was out under the car trying to see where they came from. I thought that was funny, but just don't touch anything.

[FlyingClayDisk]

Honestly, I never thought I would read (3) pages about a flat tire!  LOL!  (just kidding!)

When you live out in the country on dirt roads, flat tires are a pretty common thing.  I get a flat about once a month on something, sometimes more.  I carry spares for everything, and keep an impact wrench in all my vehicles just to speed things up.  I have my jacks set up to be the same size as the lugnuts on each vehicle so I can use the impact wrench to raise/lower the jack too.  They say it's bad for the jack (and the impact) but I don't care; they're cheap in comparison to kneeling in the mud and rocks.  Plus, I tow big trailers with livestock in them and having to leave a vehicle parked in the sun with livestock in a trailer can be a costly (very) affair.  So, the faster I can get back on the road the better.

One thing which really helps prevent flat tires is mud flaps, especially on the front wheels.  My local mechanic kept telling me this, but me being the hard-head that I am, I never listened to him.  Then, one day, I got so sick of having so many flats that I broke down and bought a set of mud flaps for the front of one of the trucks.  Wow!  He was right.  All of a sudden my flat tires went down by about 90%.  That was all I needed to know, and now all the vehicles have mud flaps on the fronts.

I don't know for certain why this works, but I've been told that the front tires stand nails and other tire destroyers upright for your rear tires to roll over and get punctured.  Apparently front mud flaps prevent this, or so I've been told.  Seems like magic to me, but it works!

[CCoburn]

Honestly, I never thought I would read (3) pages about a flat tire!  LOL!  (just kidding!)

I know right, but that wasn't just "a flat tire". That was a 3-to-4-month span of some freak shit. I went from like two flats in twenty years to about one a month. With the places I drive it was definitely an anomaly. Even the dirt roads around here are well kept and I mostly stick to the ones with properties and powerlines.

The one flat a month is in no way an acceptable statistic for me, and to add insult to injury this happens to be the one car that I buy that doesn't come with a spare, but spare or not, flat tires are a real pain in the ass, and something I'd just rather not have to deal with, and most definitely not at the frequency and disadvantage I happened to be at.

They were coming at me from all directions: treads, sidewalls, around the bead, not to mention the one that formed a bubble and had to be replaced. All on the front too. It was anything but typical. I even think someone might've thrown some metal object out their window one night(maybe because I was driving aggressively), and there was a substantial BUMP and an instant TPMS warning.

Anyway, no flats for a few months now (the way life should be), and I'm still using AAA as a fail-safe. I'll probably only have this spareless car for maybe another year, and now it's (4) pages.

I have read a lot of posts here, and I can see that some of us are different people with different circumstances, activities, and perspectives, so I can definitely understand how this might appear trivial to someone else(at face value).

I don't even know what an impact wrench is, but I know someone that does, and I don't get the "mud flaps" thing either. Maybe it has something to do with creating or altering a vector of air/debris flow that has a tendency of disrupting small road hazards in a way that is beneficial to not getting a flat. Not sure what else would make any sense there.

[FlyingClayDisk]

I know right, but that wasn't just "a flat tire". That was a 3-to-4-month span of some freak shit. I went from like two flats in twenty years to about one a month. With the places I drive it was definitely an anomaly. Even the dirt roads around here are well kept and I mostly stick to the ones with properties and powerlines.

The one flat a month is in no way an acceptable statistic for me, and to add insult to injury this happens to be the one car that I buy that doesn't come with a spare, but spare or not, flat tires are a real pain in the ass, and something I'd just rather not have to deal with, and most definitely not at the frequency and disadvantage I happened to be at.

They were coming at me from all directions: treads, sidewalls, around the bead, not to mention the one that formed a bubble and had to be replaced. All on the front too. It was anything but typical. I even think someone might've thrown some metal object out their window one night(maybe because I was driving aggressively), and there was a substantial BUMP and an instant TPMS warning.

Anyway, no flats for a few months now (the way life should be), and I'm still using AAA as a fail-safe. I'll probably only have this spareless car for maybe another year, and now it's (4) pages.

I have read a lot of posts here, and I can see that some of us are different people with different circumstances, activities, and perspectives, so I can definitely understand how this might appear trivial to someone else(at face value).

I don't even know what an impact wrench is, but I know someone that does, and I don't get the "mud flaps" thing either. Maybe it has something to do with creating or altering a vector of air/debris flow that has a tendency of disrupting small road hazards in a way that is beneficial to not getting a flat. Not sure what else would make any sense there.

I was just teasin' ya'!  I knew it was a lot more than just a flat tire.

[CCoburn]

I was just teasin' ya'!  I knew it was a lot more than just a flat tire.

This was all back around the same time I decided to try mounting my own tires: low profile 235/40/18.

I took one down in the basement one afternoon and let the air out and tried beating it to death with a sledgehammer and this large heavy-duty chisel like tool. That wasn't working out too well, so I grabbed my weight bench and used the metal frame and the scissor jack to try and compress the tire to break the bead - that didn't work either.
 
I eventually concluded that if it's this difficult it just ain't worth it and it would be insane to not just pay the $20 and spend an hour at the tire shop.

In retrospect, I think maybe removing the metal valve stem core (and not just letting the air out) might've been more crucial than I thought. Maybe air getting trapped inside was causing a problem and making it more difficult than it needed to be.

I kind of knew you were joking anyway (to some extent).

Edit: I got interrupted too much on this one.

[FlyingClayDisk]

This was all back around the same time I decided to try mounting my own tires: low profile 235/40/18.

I took one down in the basement one afternoon and let the air out and tried beating it to death with a sledgehammer and this large heavy-duty chisel like tool. That wasn't working out too well, so I grabbed my weight bench and used the metal frame and the scissor jack to try and compress the tire to break the bead - that didn't work either.
 
I eventually concluded that if it's this difficult it just ain't worth it and it would be insane to not just pay the $20 and spend an hour at the tire shop.

In retrospect, I think maybe removing the metal valve stem core (and not just letting the air out) might've been more crucial than I thought. Maybe air getting trapped inside was causing a problem and making it more difficult than it needed to be.

I kind of knew you were joking anyway (to some extent).

Edit: I got interrupted too much on this one.

Am I reading this correctly...you tried to break the bead on a tubeless tire without first removing the valve stem and getting all the air out???  Wow!  Yeah, if that's the case, you definitely found out the hard way how not to demount a tire!  If it's a vehicle tire, I always take mine to a tire shop; it's way worth it to me (but me and the tire shop guys are on a first name basis with all the tires we need to get worked on).

But I do have a really crappy flat tire story for you...

I had one of the tractor tires get low once and didn't notice it.  Jumped on the tractor and picked up a 2,150 pound round bale and flattened the front tire (dumb me), just blew it off the bead.  Because it was a big tractor tire I didn't feel like calling the tire shop guys to bring out the tire service truck.  (Plus I was super mad at myself for such a dumb mistake)  Figured I'd just do it on my own with tire irons.  Got the tire back on the rim with the irons, but couldn't get the bead to seat for anything.  Used up almost a whole can of ether trying to flare it back on there, but not even that worked.  By this time I'd spent about 6 hours on this tire and it was getting close to midnight and I still had more stuff to do.  I was hoppin' mad by then.  Finally figured I'd get my 4-ton chainfall down and wrap the chain around the tire, then cranked that puppy down with about everything I could muster.  Well, that worked...finally.  Of course, then it started raining, then snowing.  Jumped back on the tractor after I got the tire mounted back up (using our skid loader).  It was after 2am by then, and I was draggin' ass.  Took the hay out to the girls in the pasture.  No sooner did I button up the round bale feeder and jumped on the tractor heading for the barn...BOOM...blew the front tire I'd just spent all day fixing!  This time the bead was damaged so I was screwed (I must have abraded the bead somehow with my tire irons earlier).  DAMMIT!  I was about 2 miles from the house. 

Didn't have the heart to call the wife to come get me in the truck, so it was going to be a 2 mile mud-hike back to the house in the sleet, and dark as the inside of a cow outside.  Fortunately, one of the neighbors down the way saw the reflective stripes on my coveralls right as I got to the road.  He was headed out to plant wheat.  He gave me a lift to the house right after I'd called my tire guys, told them where the tractor was, tire sizes, etc.  They  said had two jobs in front of me, so it was going to be a while before they got to me (they run 24x7 during planting and harvest seasons).  Went home and crashed, I was toast by then.

Went back out at about 6am and the tractor was completed, but it looked like they'd got their truck stuck at least twice.  Must have been on the way out because I could see the tracks were they'd used the tractor to get them out (which was fine, I'd left the keys for them).  That was just a really sh!tty night for everyone.  Finally got the tractor home around 7, and then had to head into town to square up on my $1,000+ dollar bill.

There's an old saying that goes..."If you're gonna' be stupid, you damn well better be tough!"

It's an accurate saying!

P.S. - One day I'll tell you about Memorial Day 2008, a day which will live in infamy for me.  It was the most FUBAR'd day imaginable, where Murphy's law on steroids was in maximum turbo-overdrive!!  (3 heavy tractors, 2 skid loaders, 4 4WD trucks, all hopelessly stuck.  Took over 7 days, 5 wreckers and a bulldozer to get everything out).  But there weren't any flat tires in that story, so I'll save it for another day.

[CCoburn]

Am I reading this correctly...you tried to break the bead on a tubeless tire without first removing the valve stem and getting all the air out???  Wow!  Yeah, if that's the case, you definitely found out the hard way how not to demount a tire!  If it's a vehicle tire, I always take mine to a tire shop; it's way worth it to me (but me and the tire shop guys are on a first name basis with all the tires we need to get worked on).

Yup, you read it correctly. Lots of times when I do a job it involves buying more tools, and I didn't have the tool for removing the valve core, but I did hear you can use tweezers although I didn't try that, so I just opted for the doomed method(I guess) of just letting and squashing out as much air as I could. I did waffle a bit as to whether or not I should just go pick up the valve core removal tool but never did.

It was my first attempt at demounting a tire, a low profile no less, which I was hearing is a little more difficult, and apparently even moreso when you got a little leftover air trapped inside. In hindsight I suppose that valve removal tool wasn't so negligible after all.

I might think about trying it again, but I'm also thinking that even if done the absolute correct way it still ain't going to be worth it, and I'm better off just paying the 20-25 bucks at the tire shop.

There might be a couple reasons why I might want to do it myself though:

1. I could clean the rim up really good including the Fix-A-Flat I've used. I'm thinking those shop kids aren't concerned so much about that; it probably just pisses them off and makes their job more difficult.

2. I don't really trust anyone to work on my car these days; I think I do a better job because it's mine and I actually give a shit about it. There is one independent mechanic I like(and trust) though who does good work and is reasonable, but his yard, workspace, office, and house is a total fucking disaster, there's junk everywhere, but he's good though, and I guess he's just busy being a mechanic is all. I think he's into a lot of other work too like welding and fabricating. Very busy guy. He won't even answer his phone, and I have to drive twenty minutes or so just to talk to him or make an appointment.