149,791 Miles

Finally got round to having new tyres fitted; just as well, as the rear off-side was in a bad way. The tread was good (very good in fact) but the inner wall had almost a 100% circumferential crack in the outer skin.

I opted for Bridgestone Potenza RE050 tyres, which I ordered from and arranged fitting through Black Circles. As of writing, one day later, they certainly make a huge difference. Lovely, smooth, precise feeling is restored....well almost.

147,000 Miles

Since having the car back from the garage with the new front spring top seats, the handling has been better, but also unfortunately, a knock developed on the front offside, suspiciously sounding like a ball joint. Ball joints had been replaced less than a year ago, so this was obviously a tad annoying.

I jacked the car up a bit, then grabbed the wheel and yanked it too and fro and started to hear and detect a clunking noise. Putting my hand on the ball joint and yanking the wheel again, I could feel the play in the joint, so it was definitely gone.

141,000 Miles

Had a bad day. It was my father-in-law's funeral, so it was really not a good day...

As for the car...well, I had to drive a few people home, which involved a round trip of about 100 miles.

Firstly, on the side a well known, busy dual carriage way (the A1) I got a flat tyre, in the rear nearside. Odd, but there we are. The hole was easy to spot and fortunately in the main section of the tread so it was repairable. So half the journey was spent driving on the space saver.

Later in the journey, I had suspicions something wasn't right under the bonnet. I could feel vibrations from the engine (only slight) that weren't normally there, plus it was making a bit of a noise. Very subtle, but not normally there. Then suddenly there was a funny noise from the engine bay, front right area, and a dipped head light bulb blew.

139,000 Miles

Had an incident with the car last week. Set off early one cold morning and about 5 minutes into my journey I had a sudden loss of power. Not complete loss of power just a sudden reduction. It felt just like the traction control kicking in, which is what I assumed it was, but then the power did not return. In fact I had very little power and a new message on the dash "Engine System Service Required" (or was it Urgent?).

This didn't bode well, and I was obviously in some sort of 'Limp Mode' where the ECU prevents you from using too much torque in case of engine damage due to whatever has been flagged up as faulty. So I pulled over and turned the engine/ignition off, waiting a bit then back on. The message had cleared and it appeared to be normal again, but pretty much straight away it went back into limp mode and I was limited to about 2,000 RPM. So at this point I decided to go back home.

On the way home, I had some odd jerky moments and it even cut out a few times. Made it back home and resolved to look up a local Volvo specialist and see what they could do. There would be no point me having a look as there will be nothing visibly wrong and what could take me ages to trouble shoot, can be done in seconds with the right fault reader.

127,459 Miles

New rear offside tyre.

123,000 Miles

123,000 oil and filter change

123,750 low beam bulb replacement

119,500 Miles

Think this is my first log since owning the car. I have done about 8,000 miles in it already and have had to do a bit of work.

Work recently completed includes:

• New front wishbones, which include bushes
  
• New front lower ball joints
  
• New front drop links
  
• New front tyres
  
• Removed tow bar
  
• Installed Device to enable MP3 playback though the HU803 Stereo
  

After driving the car for a while up and down the motorway to work, it developed knocking noise and loose/wobbly feelings from the front. Also, vibration through the steering wheel.

I seem cursed with cars that need the front end suspension sorting out. Anyway, a car this age, it is not unexpected.