V70 Drain Plug -- Service Light Reset

My wife took her 2000 V70 to a nearby oil change place, which lost her drain plug. They sent a guy out NAPA to hunt one down and I -- fearing that someone dumb enough to lose the drain plug would probably buy the wrong one and strip the threads -- volunteered to buy one at Jacksonville, Florida's only Volvo dealer.

The plug cost $3.25, which seemed more or less reasonable these days. The CRUSH WASHER cost $1.73!!!! I made a big scene at (monopolist) Osteen Volvo, telling them that crush washers for my BMW only cost 25 cents at the BMW dealer. I pronounced (quite loudly, I might add) that this is a powerful argument for not buying another Volvo.

I've now persuaded myself to do my wife's oil changes in my driveway. This brings to mind a couple of questions...

  1. Does the service light provide an indication of need for service, based on algorithms in the car's computer?

  1. There apparently are a sequence of button pushings that reset the service light. What are they?

Many thanks in advance to those of you in Volvo land, who might be providing a silver lining to this cloudy incident.

Reply to
Solid Citrizen
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Okay. I tried one of the solutions noted on the group. Pressed in the odo reset button while turning on the car. Then released the odo reset button after the service light started blinking. No problem.

Reply to
Solid Citrizen

Volvo costs have always been a screw job. That's just a fact. Unless you do your own work and use aftermarket parts, this isn't the car for you. Now that Beemer isn't cheap either....

Reply to
inLA

I find BMW parts are not altogether awful. There's plenty of aftermarket stuff around and if you look hard enough on the Net, you can save big dollars on parts built by Bosch and others for BMW. I also find that BMW doesn't screw people for incidental parts. I've found that my awful monopolist BMW dealer here in Jacksonville will GIVE me small parts like connectors and screws. I bought a bunch of crush washers because I tend to lose them when changing my oil and the price was insignificant.

20 years ago, I had a PV544. Volvo parts back then were quite reasonable. Of course, because the thing was so simple and reliable, I didn't need too many parts. Back then, Saab had the reputation for requiring intensive maintenance with expensive parts. From what I hear, this relationship between "Swedish" makes has been reversed.

Look, parts for everything are outrageous. I've had oriental cars and US-made pickups and have been amazed by sky-high parts costs, but I'm going to steer clear of someone selling products priced so criminally.

Reply to
Solid Citrizen

From what I have read Saab's have gotten a lot better, but they still can have some problems, they are probably similar to Volvo's. I have heard from too many people to steer clear of Saab's, even ones from the mid 90s.

Reply to
Rob Guenther

One other aspect of Saab that leaves me cold is that the new models are based on Opels -- as are the Catera and the Saturn L. Just noticed a mighty strong resemblance between the Saab 93 I saw a few minutes ago and the Saturn.

aftermarket

Reply to
Solid Citrizen

aftermarket

Reply to
John Robertson

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