Previous owner paid the price
Bought my '99 at 73k miles, and had an independent Volvo tech note that the ETM had been replaced, as indicated by the yellow sticker on it. Contacted the previous owner, who confirmed replacement in 2004 somewhere between 52k and 73k miles. The cost of replacement was one of their reasons for selling the car, as the expense of ownership was not what they were expecting from their first Volvo. They also replaced the radiator and water pump, as major items.
Guess I've dodged this bullet at this time, but I'll have to be prepared for an future recurrence, as component failure based on poor design is a "when" instead of an "if".
I wonder if I will have the same problems with the ABS unit, as it too has been reported on other forums to be prone to failures. :confused:
Thanks to Don Wilson for keeping this effort going! And everyone else who is supporting the effort through their contributions!
Finally Died Two Weeks Ago!
My ETM was causing rough idle for more than one year. I left the car with my parents two weeks ago while they were watching my two young children so they could be driven around in our 'safest' vehicle. It died on them. The car had just over 70K miles but Volvo worked out a deal where I paid for the cleaning (around $300) and they put in a new part (under warranty). I was happy to save $700 from what it would have cost. And now I've found out how widespread this problem is and I feel like I'm just waiting for the ETM to fail again. The first signs of failure happened sometime around 50K miles -- maybe as early as 45K or possibly as late as 55K. Just in the past few months it's had trouble starting. It would occasionally die once and then always start the second time. I hope we can push Volvo to reimburse everyone for their past and future expenses related to this DESIGN DEFECT which is causing a serious SAFETY concern. This part need to be re-designed, hopefully before someone is injured or worse!
My XC does not live up to the VOLVO quality rep...
My throttle body started to fail in the 60k mile range. It would stutter on the freeway and the dash light would come on. I was told twice (and repaired) that the problem was a faulty O2 sensor. My XC completely failed, stalling during my commute home from work ini heavy holiday traffic on a dark, rainy, November night with my sweet 2 yr old in the car. Quite frightening. After a few moments, I was able to limp off the road. I paid for the repair (1000.) although the dealer was kind enough to give me a no cost loaner. The shop that performs the normal maintenance on my car could not replace the throttle body because of the programming requirement but they did comment that they thought it was odd that the local VOLVO dealer had 8 or 9 throttle bodies in stock. "A large number for such and expensive and random part."
BTW, my XC is a Turbo, I live in the Seattle area (so fairly mild temperatures). I have always used premium gas too.