Had my car in a volvo indy ‘specialist’ last week for two front wishbones and a ball joint (using volvo parts).
After picking up the car I noticed that the steering wheel was no longer straight and it seemed like that the car was ‘tighter’ than before. I put the latter down to new joints.
Took the car on a 200 mile round trip and the weekend and about half way through I started to hear a rumbling sound from the front that was speed related but not gear related (i.e. put it into neutral while moving and the sound didn’t change). This morning there’s a creaking/crunching noise when the car is no full lock and moving slowing – sounds a bit like CV joint.
before I phone the garage and start pointing fingers, could they have messed something up when they fitted the new wishbones?

Just take it back to them.

I’m going to, but they are likely to say it was already like that – although that could be tricky as they MOT’d it 1 week before and I’d guess it would have been noticed than.

Sounds like they have not bothered to centre the steering rack after removing the Hub carriers and associated gubbins to fit the new wishbones, the rumbling sound could be due to a wheel bearing – it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to “upset” a wheel bearing by removal of the hub nut and subsequent re-torquing of the hub nut, or they might have over-torqued it or perhaps not torqued it at all, then again it could be CV joint related as you mentioned crunching regarding full lock and moving slowly.

It’s nigh on impossible to pinpoint what could be wrong whilst sat here at keyboard, Get it back to the garage and let them examine it but ask to wait for the car or view the work done yourself, for all you know they may have forgot to tighten something up, it does happen.

(ex-mechanic)

Why did they fit new wishbones and not just change the wishbone bushes??
You need proper 4 wheel tracking done if you take off a wishbone which will sort the camber, castor and toe in/out.. they will centre the steering whilst doing the tracking

Why did they fit new wishbones and not just change the wishbone bushes??

Actually cheaper/easier to replace the entire wishbone than to replace the bushes – 3rd party wishbones apparently made of cheese compared to Volvo ones and cause all sorts of handling issues.

We once took the g/fs car in for MOT. One of the suspension arm bushes had gone, and they quoted for a new arm. I told them you could buy the bushes separately and replace the bush, but they refuse to do this saying they hadn’t the tools (which is odd, I’ve done it at home with no tools).

So, they fitted a new arm, MOT’d the car and told us the car was ready for collection.

My g/f picked up the car and when she got home asked me to have a drive as she thought it didn’t ‘feel right’.

I had a quick drive and concurred that the tracking must be out.

We took the car back and explained the problem.

The mechanic who did the work came out and got in the car, and then we saw the problem. The tracking was hugely and obviously out. Like this \ /…no joke, really that bad.

So, turns out the mechanic had fitted the wrong arm from another vehicle, and it was too long.

When I challenged the garage owner he said “He’s our best mechanic, been doing this over 20 years, he knows what he’s doing”. I pointed out the obvious holes in that particular argument. The room full of customers were suitably amused.

We didn’t use the garage again.

Why did they fit new wishbones and not just change the wishbone bushes??

A lot of cars this is now just something you buy as a part. Yes you could possibly get new bushes if an aftermarket company makes them in the right size and compound, but it’d probably cost the difference in labour pressing them in and out of the old wishbones (which may be rusty, bent, threads corroded etc).

You need proper 4 wheel tracking done if you take off a wishbone which will sort the camber, castor and toe in/out..

Whils’t that’s a perfeclty valid point if the OP was driving a fully rose jointed sports car with independant double wishbones all round, and one the salesman for the 4 wheel alignment purveyor probably drilled into you. but he’s driving a Volvo, not a Westfield. How exactly do you intend on adjusting any of that beyond the tracking on a McPherson strut?

The only adjustable thing on 99.9% of cars is the toe in/out on the front, everything else is as it left the factory. The most they can do is tell you that it’s out of alignment and leave you to figure out whether thats from worn bushes or a crash.

Actually cheaper/easier to replace the entire wishbone than to replace the bushes – 3rd party wishbones apparently made of cheese compared to Volvo ones and cause all sorts of handling issues.

If you are taking off the wishbone it probably takes 5 mins to press the old ones out and press new ones in. Lemforder (german company) make some excellent replacement parts such as bushes, drop links, etc. maybe they dont make em for volvo?? I did the wishbone bushes on my VW T4 and just took the wishbones to a local garage who pressed some out/in for a tenner.

The only adjustable thing on 99.9% of cars is the toe in/out on the front, everything else is as it left the factory. The most they can do is tell you that it’s out of alignment and leave you to figure out whether thats from worn bushes or a crash.

Not true. My car (diesel estate!) has eccentrics on most of the suspension links and the whole thing can be adjusted. Makes a massive difference to how the car rides and handles.

thisisnotaspoon – Member

You need proper 4 wheel tracking done if you take off a wishbone which will sort the camber, castor and toe in/out..

Whils’t that’s a perfeclty valid point if the OP was driving a fully rose jointed sports car with independant double wishbones all round, and one the salesman for the 4 wheel alignment purveyor probably drilled into you. but he’s driving a Volvo, not a Westfield. How exactly do you intend on adjusting any of that beyond the tracking on a McPherson strut?

The only adjustable thing on 99.9% of cars is the toe in/out on the front, everything else is as it left the factory. The most they can do is tell you that it’s out of alignment and leave you to figure out whether thats from worn bushes or a crash.

The XC90 does have alround 4 wheel independant suspession and is well know for needing 4 wheel alignment.

I have also been told that it easier and cheaper to just replace the wishbone at some thing like £130 each for proper volvo ones and that it is really hard to get the old bushes out let alone the new ones in (ie needs a lot of force and most garages don’t have presses that go high enough).

Had a similar problem on a s80 , turns out there’s two types of wishbones that few people know about , even Volvo parts ! Only reason I new was because the steering wheel was not in line after fitting , plus it through the wheel alignment out so steering was very light , just ask garage to check for correct wishbone fittment

Kwikfit tried to sell me new wishbones for £500, I took it to an independent and he charged me around £100 to replace the bushes, although he did admit afterwards that it took him ages 🙂

My Mondeo has adjustable rear toe/camber and when it was sorted out during a 4 wheel alignment, it transformed the car from a wandering liability into something that went where it was pointed 🙂

The only adjustable thing on 99.9% of cars is the toe in/out on the front, everything else is as it left the factory.

Some Volvos need camber adjustment too after wishbone replacement, and not just older ones.

FWIW, take it back, and stick to your guns. It could be any number of things.

What Volvo is it out of curiosity? And which garage? Being a Volvo tart I need to know these things!! 🙄

The XC90 does have alround 4 wheel independant suspession and is well know for needing 4 wheel alignment.

Yes but this manifests itself in excessive edge wear on the rear tyres – I’ve had this car for 10 years and never had a problem with tyre wear, so I’m presuming mine came out of the factory right. Handling is absolutely fine, it’s the noise I’m concerned about and tracking ain’t going to fix that.

Volvo do not require the tracking checking after replacement of the control arms.
The bushes for the arm are available (Part no 30639368 and 31304040).The control arms should be 31304046 and 31304045.

I suspect that the driveshaft splines were stuck in the hub and the garage has had to batter the end of the shaft to free it from the hub. You can get away with this 90% of the time, but every now and then you will kill off the wheel bearing and/or the CV joint.

I’m assuming they followed the factory procedure and we are talking about an XC90.

Hth
Marko

I’m assuming they followed the factory procedure and we are talking about an XC90.

Yes to the latter and ‘dunno’ to the former, but they are a volvo ‘specialist’ and seem to know a lot about them. The initial noise sounds very similar to the rear bearing that went last year…. clicking noise (which only became apparent this morning) sounds much like a CV joint 😥
The car felt like it wasn’t running as ‘freely’ as it was before the repair but was quiet, noise started after about 50 miles.
It’s going back on wednesday and they’ve already said they’ll fix any problem they caused FOC.
I think the fact they did the MOT a few days earlier is in my favour as they didn’t mention and noises and they did do a road test.

The XC90 does have alround 4 wheel independant suspession and is well know for needing 4 wheel alignment.

In that case I shall bow out of the thread gracefully.

*BOOOOOOMMMMMM* (The sound of the internet exploding as somene admitied they were wrong)

if it is possible to fit the wrong wishbone or a ball joint then the camber might be wrong which is putting the CV joints at a bad angle or over extending or compressing them. You can normally spot this by looking at the wheel angles on level ground.

Other than that they might have damaged something (Cv joint or bearing) during the work or not have tightened up a hub nut so the shaft is wobbling.

The ‘light’ feeling points towards an angle being wrong – tracking, camber etc and the noise points towards a CV joint or maybe bearing.