Steering wheel shake starting at 40 mph and progress

Ok what I would do first is do a tire rotation and see if the shake changes. If it does then it is in the tires. If the shake doesn't change then I would check the front end ball joints and tire rods and wheel bearings and such and make sure nothing it worn. Let me know what you find. Thanks and Merry Christmas.

I am the original owner of my 2005 XC90 and I have the same poblem. We have over 80,000 miles and the problem started about 5000 miles ago. We have taken it in several times to the Volvo dealer and other mechanics that specialize in Volvo. After the first mechanic, I replaced all the tires with Good Year Fortera's (second set of same) and it didn't go away. Volvo said it might be the bearings but they weren't sure and it would cost me just as much to check it as to replace them and there was no guarantee of that being the problem. It's getting worst! We only notice it during acceleration.

Did you ever find the answer to this. We have a 2004 XC90 and having the same shakes when applying power. Have put on new tires, motor mounts replaced, now they want to replace the front axles. Would love to hear if yours got fixed...

If your car shakes while under acceleration then you do have bad axles.

JIS001 is right! In my case, it was the right front drive shaft. I don't remember exactly, but I think my mechanic charged me around $900 (total) to repair it. I think it was around $600 for the part. I'm in Hawaii, so we had to wait for the part. It had to get really bad before he detected it because he had checked it out two times before finding the actual problem. The crack was located under the black accordian sleeve looking thing. I hope my description makes since. It looks like a black elbow pad with fan folds in it. Sorry, not very mechanical. We've had no problems since.

Did anyone follow JIS001’s advice? Did replacing the axle fix the wobble during acceleration?

Yes it does what happens is the CV joints bind due to wear which causes the vibration. here is how you fix it. I would do both axles here is a video of the job being done on a similar car with instructions in the diagrams below on how to fix you car.

https://youtu.be/Cm3ZCw0_MLo

Check out the diagrams (below). Please let us know what happens.