01 V70 XC lost power

**EricS** · 10-21-2009, 06:00 PM

My wife lost power in her Volvo on a recent trip. The car still would go, but slowly, and if she stopped completely, she said it would stall out. She took it to a mechanic that I found on Google in Portland, Ore, and they couldn't find anything wrong with it, other than they said it needed a 100,000 mile tune up. They did that, and things seemed to work.

About a week later, we started up the car one morning, and it was lurching. We decided to drive it around a little while to see if it would get better or worse, and it went away in about a minute.

Today, after driving around all day running errands, it apparently started up with the loss of power thing again, so now it's back at the shop, but this time, our regular mechanic.

I'm wondering if this could be related to a 'whirring' noise that has become more prevalent. I have a suspicion that the whirring is related to the differential, but could be something else? The noise is directly related to vehicle speed, independent of the RPMs. Sounds like we have giant swamp tires on it or something. We just got all 4 the tires replaced 2 days ago, as the front tires had completely warn down in one year with non-rotation (about 25k miles).

No messages are being displayed on the dash.

Could the lurching be a differential thing, or is it a whole other issue??
What happens when a differential goes out??

**RockitShip** · 10-21-2009, 07:54 PM

Could be anything... the sound, the lurching, the loss of power.
Finding a better mechanic would be a good start (not being facetious).
Could be your throttle body (ETM) and/or transmission and/or angle gear (front axle).
All of these items are known for being problematic on 01 & 02 XC70.
If I were you I'd just take it to a decent Volvo dealership.

Colin

**Forkster** · 10-21-2009, 09:56 PM

Turbo control Valve?

**slowflyer** · 10-21-2009, 10:23 PM

When I had the ETM failure, ours went into limp-home mode (limp to the side of the road, actually).

I just replaced the turbo control valve in our 01. I did not have any of the OP's symptoms. The OBDII showed a code (P1237 if I remember) so I don't think that is it but, if it is, he can read the codes to verify.

TCV is an easy replacement - IPD sells one.

Both of these incidents resulted in messages on the dash.

**duettitude** · 10-22-2009, 07:53 AM

The whirring probably is one or more bad wheel bearings.

**icegrill** · 12-01-2009, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by EricS

My wife lost power in her Volvo on a recent trip. The car still would go, but slowly, and if she stopped completely, she said it would stall out. She took it to a mechanic that I found on Google in Portland, Ore, and they couldn't find anything wrong with it, other than they said it needed a 100,000 mile tune up. They did that, and things seemed to work.

About a week later, we started up the car one morning, and it was lurching. We decided to drive it around a little while to see if it would get better or worse, and it went away in about a minute.

Today, after driving around all day running errands, it apparently started up with the loss of power thing again, so now it's back at the shop, but this time, our regular mechanic.

I'm wondering if this could be related to a 'whirring' noise that has become more prevalent. I have a suspicion that the whirring is related to the differential, but could be something else? The noise is directly related to vehicle speed, independent of the RPMs. Sounds like we have giant swamp tires on it or something. We just got all 4 the tires replaced 2 days ago, as the front tires had completely warn down in one year with non-rotation (about 25k miles).

No messages are being displayed on the dash.

Could the lurching be a differential thing, or is it a whole other issue??
What happens when a differential goes out??

What shop did you go to? I think my wife's 02 XC is in need of having it's rear differential replaced.