[StubbyMalone]

I just picked up a 2004 XC last Saturday. It has 15,000 miles on it. I've never owned a Volvo before. Yesterday, while we were on vacation in the White Mountains, the car started to slow to a crawl. The throttle was reving up and down repeatedly. We got the car towed back to the dealer we bought it from (120 miles from where we were stuck). They called today to let us know the throttle control module would need to be replaced and they had to special order the part. I won't have my car back for another 5 days or so. Needless to say we're not too happy. I've always owned Japanese cars and I've never been stuck on the side of the road the way I was with this Volvo. We both love the way it drives and the safety features, but my wife is strongly leaning towards getting rid of it and going back to Japanese quality. She's afraid of getting stuck on the side of the road again. I can't say I blame her, but I'm not sure what we should do. Maybe I'll ask the dealer to add a little Japanese quality into it while it's there for the five days (that's one day longer than we had it before it failed on us).

Wah.

There are tears in my soup my friends...

 

[Tech]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck

.That is not a common thing on the newer XC90's.That was a problem with cars 2002 and older.Hopefully things will be better for you soon.

I would give it one more try.

 

[imlosthere]

I would definately give it another chance. The xc70's are one of the most reliable in my opinion.

One suggestion though change your oil every 3000 miles unless your using synthetic the go 5000 miles.
The warranty services are set for every 7500 miles, but you should change it in between the services. If not you may see these kinds of problems occuring.

When the modules fail the inside of the throttle module is coated with an oil film and sometimes an outright sludge. Then most common problems are surging at idle, hesitation, and surging at highway speeds.

If neglected the oil seperator can get sludged and send excess oil vapor into the intake and through the module. I've noticed that most throttle modules last alot longer on the cars that have the oil changed normally.

With that being said it does not mean the previous owner neglected the car, sometimes they just fail........

Technology is great when it works..

 

[ArtSmart]

This is one of the most common occuring problems on XC70. It is described by all the simptoms above + sudden loss of power, which is a major safety issue. It seems that electronic throttle module was designed to last only 180K miles but most of the falues were observed around 85K. To the best of my knowledge, Volvo never redisigned the unit so it is just a metter of time untill it will fail again even if it is replaced with a new one. There are couple of law suites pending conserning this problem and there is pressure on Volvo to make it a recall item. So far, Volvo refused to do anything about it.

Mine is a 2004 XC70 too and I feel that I'm driving a timebomb. I'm thinking about ditching this car and going with a manufacturer that doesn't have any affiliation fot FORD (In my personal opinion, since the time FORD bought Volvo, the quality of Volvo became comparable of quality of FORD)

This problem was discussed in detail on the other XC70 forum (http://www.volvoxc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=6) and there are plenty of people there who feel betrayed by Volvo.