I am new to Volvo and need to know if I have a problem or not with the heater and fan of an brand-new, Euro-model s60 that I just bought. The behaviour I describe in this post is pretty bizarre and nothing like any of the other cars I have owned. But, like I say, I am new to the world of Volvo, so maybe they know something I do not, or someone out there has a solution to the problem, before I head back to the dealer.
The user guide says that the fan is controlled automatically when the heater is set to Auto. In the light of this, I expect the fan to come on automatically on very cold mornings, as soon as the engine/coolant is up to temperature, in order to speed up the heating in the car, and raise the real temp to the desired temp, which I dial on the dashboard.
This does not happen: instead I have to manually check if warm air is coming out of the vents on the dashboard and then, as soon as I detect warm air, switch on the fan to heat up the car. If I do not do this, the car simply does not get up to the desired temp, of 22C: it sticks around 19-20. Presumably, this will get worse as we get into Winter and is not helped by the fact that, after a while, the heater seems to give up and start pumping cooler air out of the vents.
If I start the fan manually, the car does heat up, and pretty quickly, too. But after a while, instead of turning itself off automatically once the selected temperature is reached, the temperature of the air coming out of the vents sinks progressively until the effect is as if the air-conditioner is on and blasting cool air out the vents. It seems as if the on-board computer thinks it has made a mistake by overheating the cabin, and now needs to cool the car down again.
But is gets worse!
The "heater" never again comes back on, choosing instead to continue emitting cool air. At this point, the only solution is to turn the fan off.
Am I missing something here? Or does anyone have any ideas or hints as to what could be going wrong? It would be nice to be able to refer to a service bulletin or something when I take the car in for a check.
Interestingly, on warm days (yes, we do get them once in a while here), if I dial in a cool temperature, the air-conditioner starts up the fan immediately and blasts cool air into the cabin.
The user guide says that the fan is controlled automatically when the heater is set to Auto. In the light of this, I expect the fan to come on automatically on very cold mornings, as soon as the engine/coolant is up to temperature, in order to speed up the heating in the car, and raise the real temp to the desired temp, which I dial on the dashboard.
This does not happen: instead I have to manually check if warm air is coming out of the vents on the dashboard and then, as soon as I detect warm air, switch on the fan to heat up the car. If I do not do this, the car simply does not get up to the desired temp, of 22C: it sticks around 19-20. Presumably, this will get worse as we get into Winter and is not helped by the fact that, after a while, the heater seems to give up and start pumping cooler air out of the vents.
If I start the fan manually, the car does heat up, and pretty quickly, too. But after a while, instead of turning itself off automatically once the selected temperature is reached, the temperature of the air coming out of the vents sinks progressively until the effect is as if the air-conditioner is on and blasting cool air out the vents. It seems as if the on-board computer thinks it has made a mistake by overheating the cabin, and now needs to cool the car down again.
But is gets worse!
The "heater" never again comes back on, choosing instead to continue emitting cool air. At this point, the only solution is to turn the fan off.
Am I missing something here? Or does anyone have any ideas or hints as to what could be going wrong? It would be nice to be able to refer to a service bulletin or something when I take the car in for a check.
Interestingly, on warm days (yes, we do get them once in a while here), if I dial in a cool temperature, the air-conditioner starts up the fan immediately and blasts cool air into the cabin.
