We've got an '04 XC90 T6 AWD.
SUV's don't fit in our garage, so it spends the nights in our driveway.

We had a major ice storm in New England last night. 4 or 5 inches of sleet and freezing rain. Today, the temp topped out at around 19F.

The fan motor on the car will not turn. THe dealer's service guy tells me that he's had 15 calls on this problem today, and it all comes from ice pellets going down the heater intake (at base of windshield) and freezing up, thus binding up the fan.

He won't even take the car in on a service call, as he says there's nothing wrong.
I also asked if there was any TSB on this issue and he says there isn't.

He advises that the only way to prevent this is to tarp the cowl area of the car on cold precip nights.

I'm thinking that Swedish cars were supposedly designed with winter in mind, no?

Has anyone seen this issue arise before?

Thanks

...for those of you who could not stand the suspense...

Per our dealer's instructions, we brought the xc90 into our garage for nearly 3 full days. The garage was heated to around 50 degrees (F).

At the end of the first day...no change. The heat still didn't work.

At the end of the second day...the fan now worked, but was badly out of balance. You could hear ice and slush bouncing around inside the fan chamber, and it appeared that there was still ice adhering to part of a fan blade, causing the out of balance situation.

By the third day...it appears that the unit now works normally. No vibration; normal quantity of warm air, etc.

Lets examine.
1. A car designed in Sweden (a part of the world known for its winter weather) and marketed with AWD, heated seats and other winter-beating features.
2. One stupid one-day ice storm in New England (a part of the world known for only slightly more mild winters than Sweden)
3. A dealer who suggests bringing the car indoors to avoid bad winter weather, or thawing it for 3 days if you have the bad jugdment to leave it outdoors.

I can't wait to see what's next--a suggestion that I park in the shade when the weather's too warm for the air conditioner to deal with??

Bizarre.

Hey now, hey now;

I've got an 850 Estate and I had to replace the fan motor in my car due to a similar leak issue.

The intake for outside air is located (on my car) just in front of the windshield on the passanger side and and opens into the car in the passanger footwell. This I know for sure as just after I bought the car we had a fairly heavy down pour and found about an inch and a half of water inside.

What I did to solve my problem was to remove the wipers and then the cover that joins up to the windshield. I then used a peice of weather strip, different sizes are available but you'll want a thin in width but thick in depth.

Then you'll apply it to the to the peice that butts up to the windshield not to the bottom of the windshield. :clap:

Replace the components and then park outside. Go inside and have a Rum. Beer makes me belchy :)

I've thrown in some pics and hope that they help a little. :P

Good luck and try this as I've found that the dealer is more than happy to take your money and NOT solve the problem.

I recall that they told me I'd have to replace the windshield to fix the problem. NOT GONNA HAPPEN, WOULDN'T BE PRUDENT. :bwekk:

Later


Qick-Brik

same problem here... now every time we know a snow storm is coming, we cover the intake with a garbage bag.

BTW, we 'de-iced' the fan with gallons of hot water. it worked pretty well.