[ProfessorCook]

Here's my blow by blow experience adjusting dampers front and rear.

I started with the rear wheel. You pull the wheel bolt cover with a tool provided in the tools which is included in the tray under the floor of the frunk.

Insert the tool into the wheel bolt cover with the tab towards the center of the wheel.

Then give it a good pull/yank. Be prepared to catch the cover. It's metal and you wouldn't want it scratched.

Inside/back of the cover.

There's nothing fancy about the jack points. At each jack point there's just a heavy gauge piece of steel sticking down only about a half inch below the plastic covers. It's not at all like it shows in the user manual.

There's nothing on the jack that fits into some sort of receptacle as indicated by a sketch in the user's manual. There is a cradle in the provided, emergency-use jack which, obviously is supposed to be centered on the jack point.

I didn't use the provided jack; I used a floor jack I have.

The wheel bolts use a 19 mm socket. As is standard practice, you use a breaking bar to loosen the bolts a tad before lifting the vehicle. I did so, jacked up the vehicle until there was about a half inch clear under the tire, pulled the bolts, and pulled the wheel. Easy peasy.

 

[ProfessorCook]

The wheel bolts look to be standard Volvo wheel bolts, btw. They're 61 mm long with 30 mm threaded with M14-1.5 threads.

The bottom of the damper is bolted into the suspension links. The adjustment for the rear wheels is not at the bottom.

Somebody posted that they were disappointed the rear dampers weren't gold. They are. There's just a plastic sleeve that covers the top.

 

[ProfessorCook]

Somebody posted that you don't have to remove the wheel arch liners to get at the adjustments. That may be true, but I removed the liner anyway. In the left rear, there are 9 plastic nuts (10 mm socket, though you can turn these by hand), 11 screws (Torx #20), and one plastic rivet to remove. In the right rear, there are 9 nuts, 9 screws, and the rivet.

Here's a view towards the rear.

And towards the front.

The plastic rivet is underneath at the rear. There's a center "post" that should be flush when you find it. Push that in a couple of millimeters with a small punch (or screwdriver or blunt pencil or pen) until you feel it click. At this point, the rivet should be loose enough to remove. If you do push the center past this point, the center part might push all the way through. That won't hurt the rivet, but you'll need to find that part so you can use it in the rivet again to reattach the liner later.

 

[ProfessorCook]

With the liner out, you get a good view of what's going on. the orange cables are from the charging port. The tube that terminates in space on the right is a drain tube from the charging port. (Wouldn't it make more sense to have a longer tube and carry the rainwater all the way outside the vehicle?) And you can see how the top of the damper is mounted to the body.

There's a plastic cap at the top of the damper that has to be removed. I found it hard to remove the first time. You can lift it up with your fingers, but you quickly run into the car body. I eventually figured out that tilting it towards the back helped to pop it off.

Once off, the gold knob is exposed. Mine was set at 6!

Here are all the small parts I had removed at this point.

There are six index points per 360 degree rotation of the knob. I tightened the knob clockwise until it stopped and then rotated it back 8 clicks. The manual says you can hear them, but I couldn't. It was pretty easy to feel them, though. The knob itself has some vertical travel which was unexpected. I'm not sure what that's all about.

 

[Zia]

Professor, what did you set these to, Mike from PS NY told me that the recent cars are being set at at 12 and 16 as many felt they were a bit stiff when the first Pole Stars came out.Get my car in a week😁😁😁
Void,Barley,PP

 

[ProfessorCook]

Now it was time to reassemble. 'Not much to show. Work the liner in from underneath and make sure all the studs that work with the plastic nuts pop through the appropriate holes. This was fussy work. Take your time. I put the nuts on loosely first and then inserted all the screws loosely, and then the rivet.

Don't tighten anything down until everything is in place! Leave things loose so you can work the liner as you go. With everything located and loosely positioned, you can then tighten things down.

The rivet insert can push in from the bottom. Here it is before I snapped it in place. It ends up flush. (That's a stray golden retriever hair, btw. They get everywhere!)

 

[ProfessorCook]

BTW, the rear wheel with my winter tires on weighs in at roughly 56 and a half pounds.

Here's all the markings on the inside of the rear wheel. Pretty sure the 9JX20 means 9" wide, 20" in diameter.

 

[ProfessorCook]

The front damper is much easier to adjust because you don't have to take out the wheel liner. You don't even have to take off the front wheel, but I did.

The gold knob for adjusting the damper is at the bottom, easily accessible from below. Well... you do have to get your hand in there and work around the axle and all... but it's not bad. I set it to 8 clicks as recommended as "neutral" in the manual.

The front wheels are a couple of pounds lighter.

8JX20... 8" wide, right?

So that's it. I used anti-sieze on the wheel bolts. (The manual says not to.) I also torqued everything up to 103 ft-lbs using a star pattern. (103... not 102, mind you.) I'm leaving the covers off. I'll take the car for a drive and then check the torque on all the bolts again before I call the job done.

These rotors are as impressive as the calipers! (Front right shown here.)

Volvo parts, anyone?

 

[ProfessorCook]

Professor, what did you set these to, Mike from PS NY told me that the recent cars are being set at at 12 and 16 as many felt they were a bit stiff when the first Pole Stars came out.Get my car in a week😁😁😁
Void,Barley,PP

I set them to 8 front and back as per the manual's "neutral" setting. I didn't see any direct evidence that anybody had adjusted these in New York. They might have. I'm just not sure.

 

[StarPole]

Awesome post. Thank you.

 

[JMP2]

The front damper is much easier to adjust because you don't have to take out the wheel liner. You don't even have to take off the front wheel, but I did.

View attachment 2878

The gold knob for adjusting the damper is at the bottom, easily accessible from below. Well... you do have to get your hand in there and work around the axle and all... but it's not bad. I set it to 8 clicks as recommended as "neutral" in the manual.

View attachment 2879

The front wheels are a couple of pounds lighter.

View attachment 2880

8JX20... 8" wide, right?

View attachment 2881

So that's it. I used anti-sieze on the wheel bolts. (The manual says not to.) I also torqued everything up to 103 ft-lbs using a star pattern. (103... not 102, mind you.) I'm leaving the covers off. I'll take the car for a drive and then check the torque on all the bolts again before I call the job done.

Fantastic ! Better than any manual can be ! Must be professional deformation? I also like how in the Imperial US you mix up metric and imperial measurements... Great post - thank you !

 

[baldyloxx]

perfectly good jack included and you didn't use it??!!

 

[Joel S.]

Awesome write up!

Fantastic ! Better than any manual can be ! Must be professional deformation? I also like how in the Imperial US you mix up metric and imperial measurements... Great post - thank you !

One of the joys of working on cars.

 

[ProfessorCook]

perfectly good jack included and you didn't use it??!!

Saving the pleasure!

 

[Jeff_in_SF]

My favorite post yet, thank you for taking the time to go through and document all of this Professor!

 

[ProfessorCook]

That's what I do: I learn things and then show them to others.

(t-shirt material?)

Seriously, I've been curious about this for months. Feels good to figure it out. 'Very glad if people find it helpful.

 

[Mick]

Thanks, @ProfessorCook ! My neighbor just built a new 3 bay garage with a 2-post lift and all the goodies - his lifetime dream (he races Porsche 911's). I think I will impose on his good will and do this work over there. I can usually get away with some beer and BS time in exchange. Maybe a nice bourbon would be more appropriate. Needless to say, I'll have your post handy. 😁

Thanks again for your thorough step-by-step!

 

[ProfessorCook]

You'll make quick work of it! I have a lift which won't work right now. My head's spinning with ideas on how to modify it. It's basically this one. The length of the deck is too short and the belly of our cars is lower than the lift points which adds to the challenge. I'll figure it out.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Tuxedo-6-000-lb-MidRise-Portable-Scissor/1003140424

 

[PistonCrack]

@ProfessorCook
This is a very professional and helpful thread. Thank you very much.
Resently I have started my own website with more or less the same intention: to provide help for others.
It has been started in my mother's language, but can be continued in English if there is any interest.
The good thing with forums is that everybody has access to it. The back side is that good threads are buried with nonsens.
If you are interested to post your tutorials, tipps & tricks - just let me know.
Here is the address Polestar Tipps & Tricks A-Z

 

[smithers197]

I think the comment about the good threads being buried with nonsense is a good call out. I am definitely interested, and yes I know there is a search here, but a dedicated website is cleaner (IMHO).