Two problems related to speed control cable have been reported for the 1999 Volvo V70. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
The Volvo began to sporadically lose power and stall. I called the Volvo dealer and made an appointment after it stalled while cornering and my wife had almost lost control of the vehicle. On 9/23/04 the vehicle was towed to Volvo. They checked for codes, battery cables, fuel and ignition and battery and found nothing wrong. They replaced a relay. Total cost was $173. 15. The problem was still present and I had the vehicle towed back in on 11/16/04. They then diagnosed the problem as a faulty throttle unit. They replaced it and performed a software reload. The cost of that service was $ 1077. 14. The vehicle has not stalled since.
While operating the subject vehicle, a Volvo 1999 model V70r awd, and attempting a left hand turn through traffic under a green light, the throttle control system failed. As the oncoming traffic cleared sufficiently for a safe left hand turn, the accelerator pedal was depressed to execute the left turn but the engine and vehicle did not respond. The vehicle only idled forward into approaching traffic. The vehicle had to be turned off and restarted in order to get the throttle to respond. In my opinion, this failure is equivalent to the throttle cable snapping on a four year old vehicle with only 60,000 miles. If the rate of incidence of occurrence is somehow represented by the number of complaints evident on the world wide web, then this is a common occurrence. It is likely that property and people have been hurt by this throttle failure and this problem should be corrected by a recall.