We have a Ford Explorer operating in Lagos where the terrible roads are destroying the suspension. The Ford dealer in Nigeria can’t get dollars with which to buy spare parts so we’ve had to import three consignments of spares from a Ford dealer in the USA, which is costly as it means two lots of courier charges because the Americans are too frightened to courier direct.

Last time I was chatting with the friendly parts chappie in the US he mentioned that the Explorer platform was one they acquired when Ford briefly owned Volvo and it isn’t very good. Nobody at Ford UK can tell me if there’s a way of cross-referencing the Ford Explorer parts with the equivalent Volvo parts so that I can buy them here.

Knowing the brilliance of the STW collective mind at solving obscure problems I’m throwing the question open. Can anybody help?

AFAIK It was “derived” from the P2 platform. Which the old XC90/S60/V60 and b others were on. So it’s pretty much 20 years old now.
It *was* a pretty good, but somewhat odd/quirky platform, but very dated.
Having dealt with ford and their attempts at “deriving” stuff, I’d guess that there is almost exactly no carry over at all.
We don’t even use the “derived” platform. We went straight to EUCD.

Wikipedia indicates the if its a 2011 – present explorer its based on the Ford D3 platform which is a modified Volvo P2 platform albeit with a 3″ increased wheelbase.

The Volvo P2 platform was used for everything from the S60, S80, V70, XC70 to the XC90.

Also from wiki “to reduce production costs, Ford Motor Company adopted steel suspension arms (in place of aluminum) and similar material cost-saving measures.”

I would suspect that there isnt that much cross over in terms of directly compatible suspension parts. Even if there is, from experience the cost of volvo OEM suspension parts is not cheap…

Well that’s good enough for me, thanks!