Tell your story

[Scottie]

Hey, Folks,

New member, first post.

I mainly joined because of the work I've been doing to my wife's 2004 XC90 (T2.5, 2WD).

We got it used, a pretty good deal on it about 4 years ago, it's a good family hauler (w/3rd row seat), we still like the looks of it, and above all -- it's paid for.

It still had warranty left on it. Any work needed and it went right to the dealer. Several misc trips to the dealer, and the main issue was when the throttlebody went at about 25K.

My wife is the main driver and it still has only 81K miles on it. After the warranty expired, I started to do most of any work needed. When I have time, I enjoy working on my cars, and I'm still learning a lot.

Maintenance stuff so far (other than oil changes):
front pads and rotors
brake fluid change
tranny fluid change
coolant change
(I did the above three just yesterday, since we're taking the car on a driving vacation in a couple weeks).

Non-maintenance stuff (post-warranty):
2nd throttle body
right CV shaft
gas cap door
rear wheel hubs (bearing failure)

Overall, we're happy with it, but no, not the cheapest or most reliable car we've ever had.

This site has been a great help with mechanical info, the last year especially. Now that I'm a member I'll try to add my experiance whenever I can.

Scottie

[shyate0926]

My wife & I bought our 2005 XC90 V8 AWD in March of 2010 with about 43K on it. I didn't really car for the brand, but my wife did so we tried it out and I really liked it. We test drove it at our local Chevy dealer, but I didn't feel comfortable buying a Volvo from a Chevy dealer, especially when during the test drive the message came up that it needed service. We drove it from the Chevy dealer to a local Volvo dealer and said find us this car. After about 5 days, they decided to buy the car from the Chevy dealer and sell it to us. They did all the service and made it a certified pre-owned vehicle which added the warranty we wanted. In 6 months we have driven about 9,000 miles and average about 18 mpg (16-17 around town, and 21-23 on trips). We had a couple minor issues. We received a charging system warning, so we drove it right to the dealer. They checked it out the next day and said that the power steering fluid was low, they topped it off at no charge, and said that must have been the problem. The power steering fluid is biodegradable and has a tendency to evaporate with extended high outside temps (which we had for the past 2-4 weeks). Picked the car up and when we go home, my wife said the light came back on. Took it back to the dealer that morning before they opened. The warning light would come and go, so I took a picture of it with my cell phone. This time they kept it for 3 days. Replaced the alternator & battery under warranty (alternator had killed the battery). No problems since then.

Switched to Castrol synthetic oil at our first oil change and I think it has given us 1-2 more MPG on average.

The front end is making a clunking sound when you make a tight turn, so it is going to the dealer this week for them to look at. We shall see.....

Still overall love the car, the biggest negative is FM radio reception is poor and there is no plug for any kind of mp3 player. CD's sound great, so I just switch them out every few months.

[Art]

Still overall love the car, the biggest negative is FM radio reception is poor.

Do you have the premium sound system? If so, try switching the audio setting from DLP II (Dolby Pro Logic) to either 3 channel or normal (off setting). It's been reported that signal sound quality is worse in DLP II.

[B6294TXC90]

this XC90 i have right now is (was) my parents i got it as a hand me down. Me and the XC90 have had a love hate relationship when we first got it i hated it i didnt care if i hit the door when opening it if my bike scratched it or something. the first three years i didnt care. after that i started loving the thing i would wash it wax it us compund to remove the scratches i put in. But then the tranny blew then i hated it agian mostly because it left me and my dad in the 20 degree cold winter weather in the middle of nowhere the explorer we had never left us anywhere. the engien had to get overhauled cracked cylinder head and etc but now i love the thing. I painted the whole thing by myself ordering the basecoat and clearcoat spray off automotivetouchup.com got an ipd sticker for it i also replaced the door pillar speakers with keenwoods that fit right into the original plastic outsides the two plastic outsides broke so i ordered new ones and swapped the standard speaker with kenwoods. its got about 79,000mi on it and running strong my only gripe is its not a 4x4 and i personally think cars that actually ahve antennas on them get better radio recpetion. the antenna on this car is near the rear defroster and the reciption sucks! but all in all i love my volvo now.

[Snug]

We were living in Alaska and owned a 96 Land Rover Discovery. It was my wife's DD. It has a 4.0 V8 and 5spd and full time 4wd. It was a great vehicle and a tank, but the gas mileage was lousy.

My wife deployed to the middle east for 6 months and while she was gone I sold the Disco and started the search. I looked at the Outback, the Audi All Road, the VW Passat Wagon and the Volvo XC70. After driving them all I really liked the Volvo for it's comfort and safety record I also liked the rugged looks, so the XC70 is was.

She came home and soon came to love the XC. We drove it for 6 trouble free years and then the dash went out. We now live in Tx, so we took it to the Volvo dealer and after we dropped it off for service we started to look around at the new Volvos.

We walked outside and there it was, a Magic Blue XC90 R-Design AWD. We came back inside and found a salesman and said we wanted to trade ours in on the XC90 and the deal was done.

We couldn't be happier. It has everything except the nav system. We wanted something with 3rd row seating, but didn't want a full-size SUV.

Our XC70 had 116k miles when we traded it and it was still running great. We will be Volvo owners for life.

Doug

[iguanzon]

hi, got a 2004 XC90, which I bought at the factory in Sweden through a military distributor in Naples, Italy. The experience was great until a trip to the Sequioas in California. Granted I had about 70K miles then but that's when the transmission went out. I'm thankful that Volvo Customer care took care of it and replaced the tranny for free. I like this XC90 but there is this annoying clunking noise on the steering when turning or backing up. I've had two bushings replaced on the front end and I've heard of Volvo steering/suspension issues; this must be what everyone's complaining of. Other than a small gas tank and poor mileage, I am living with it and currently researching. Next car? A hybrid but not a volvo.

[Xilikon]

hi, got a 2004 XC90, which I bought at the factory in Sweden through a military distributor in Naples, Italy. The experience was great until a trip to the Sequioas in California. Granted I had about 70K miles then but that's when the transmission went out. I'm thankful that Volvo Customer care took care of it and replaced the tranny for free. I like this XC90 but there is this annoying clunking noise on the steering when turning or backing up. I've had two bushings replaced on the front end and I've heard of Volvo steering/suspension issues; this must be what everyone's complaining of. Other than a small gas tank and poor mileage, I am living with it and currently researching. Next car? A hybrid but not a volvo.

Clunking during turn or backing up is usually due to worn endlinks.

[sankeyj]

Hello,

I purchased my 2005 XC90 with the T6 transmission new from a Volvo dealership while living in Europe. I still own my suv, just went over 63,000 miles. Initially there were no problems, loved my XC90. There was a problem with vaccum in the gas tank and they had to do maintenance to fix it, but accidently damaged the gas tank while attempting to fix the original problem. So they had to replace the entire gas tank. That is a long story in itself, problems with the German Volvo dealership that was doing the maintenance...tech went on vacation, couldn't get the part....blah blah... anyway over a month later I got my truck back. Everything was great again, and no more problems. I did notice the clunking sound others have mentioned in the front end, but the technicians would never find it, nor could I replicate the problem when I had it at the shop. So it didn't seem to cause any problems, just an odd sound, it still does it occassionally. I had the after market dual exhaust installed....but found out later it's not supposed to be installed when you have the tow package...duh...it makes a clunking sound when the exhaust bumps into the towing assembly....living with that. Last year, at just around 52k miles, the transmission started failing and then finally crapped out. It wouldnt' shift out of 2nd gear. Went back and forth with the local Volvo dealership to try to get it fixed...out of warrenty of course since it was beyond the 5 year timeframe. Waited a couple weeks to get an answer as to whether Volvo would pay to replace it or whether I was going to get stuck with it. Finally the dealership agreed to "take care of it". I was told they get a certain number of transmissions that they can use to replace the T6 transmissions and it's up to their discretion as to when they use them. I had to pay for the labor of course, but the bulk of the cost was taken care of by the dealership. So the replaced transmission from the start was less than perfect. It hesitates when it shifts and often times it doesn't "get up and go" when you put your foot on the gas. I've already started looking for a new suv to replace my beloved XC90, but I don't like much of what's out there now. I am dissappointed that Volvo didn't just fix the issues and rebuild the XC90 with a new transmission because I really like everything about the model. We also own a Volvo C30 and haven't had any problems with it. I would buy another Volvo if they had something I liked, but now I'm looking at Acura or something else. I will be sumbitting my info for the class action settlement that was awarded to recoop some of the labor costs from the transmission failure and I am hoping when I go to trade my XC90 in for something new that I get a little back on the $$$ I put into her.

[ARCHITECT]

Hello,

I purchased my 2005 XC90 with the T6 transmission new from a Volvo dealership while living in Europe. I still own my suv, just went over 63,000 miles. Initially there were no problems, loved my XC90. There was a problem with vaccum in the gas tank and they had to do maintenance to fix it, but accidently damaged the gas tank while attempting to fix the original problem. So they had to replace the entire gas tank. That is a long story in itself, problems with the German Volvo dealership that was doing the maintenance...tech went on vacation, couldn't get the part....blah blah... anyway over a month later I got my truck back. Everything was great again, and no more problems. I did notice the clunking sound others have mentioned in the front end, but the technicians would never find it, nor could I replicate the problem when I had it at the shop. So it didn't seem to cause any problems, just an odd sound, it still does it occassionally. I had the after market dual exhaust installed....but found out later it's not supposed to be installed when you have the tow package...duh...it makes a clunking sound when the exhaust bumps into the towing assembly....living with that. Last year, at just around 52k miles, the transmission started failing and then finally crapped out. It wouldnt' shift out of 2nd gear. Went back and forth with the local Volvo dealership to try to get it fixed...out of warrenty of course since it was beyond the 5 year timeframe. Waited a couple weeks to get an answer as to whether Volvo would pay to replace it or whether I was going to get stuck with it. Finally the dealership agreed to "take care of it". I was told they get a certain number of transmissions that they can use to replace the T6 transmissions and it's up to their discretion as to when they use them. I had to pay for the labor of course, but the bulk of the cost was taken care of by the dealership. So the replaced transmission from the start was less than perfect. It hesitates when it shifts and often times it doesn't "get up and go" when you put your foot on the gas. I've already started looking for a new suv to replace my beloved XC90, but I don't like much of what's out there now. I am dissappointed that Volvo didn't just fix the issues and rebuild the XC90 with a new transmission because I really like everything about the model. We also own a Volvo C30 and haven't had any problems with it. I would buy another Volvo if they had something I liked, but now I'm looking at Acura or something else. I will be sumbitting my info for the class action settlement that was awarded to recoop some of the labor costs from the transmission failure and I am hoping when I go to trade my XC90 in for something new that I get a little back on the $$$ I put into her.

Hi there,
Can you please shed some more light on the vaccum issue of the fuel tank you mentioned earlier? it seems that mine and other uk forum members are having the same or similar problem.
Thanks in advance.

[cattlecar]

2002 and later with Bosch fuel system use a leakage detection pump, not vacuum to detect tank vapor loss.
The pumps and the ECM software running the test and interpreting current draw of the LDP to determine loss rate, if any, has been updated several times and of late seems to have handled the problem.
The pump has an integral vent closing valve and a heater element as well as a small DC motor running a vane pump. For the more stringent leak test the pump is run with vent open which makes the pump push its air through a 0.5 mm hole to allow the test standard current to be determined. Then the vent closes and the pump builds current as the tank gains pressure and the pump works harder.
The less stringent test that runs more frequently runs the pump with vent closed and only needs to see a certain current gain to know there is not a large leak.

I'm not sure if this system is what you are referring to. I'm not sure what other markets and/or year models outside North America use this.

The system used earlier was a vacuum system with a pressure sensor and a vent closing valve as a free standing part.