Last weekend on a road trip, my 2008 XC70 had the battery light and “charging system failure, service urgent” message come up. We were stopping anyway, so I let it rest a bit and when I came out, the message was gone but after about 20 minutes, the dash lit like a Christmas tree and the car lost power — it was still running, but if you put the gas down, nothing happened. After we called for a tow, it refused to start at all. When the tow arrived about 40 minutes later, it started like a champ. The garage checked the battery and the alt and said they were fine.

Yesterday I was on the road for about three hours with no problems, but about an hour later I had to make a trip to the store and the battery light and charging system failure message came on again.

Any ideas before I take it out back and set it on fire, please? (Did I mention I just bought it three weeks ago? Ugh.)

 

my 2010 xc60 did this yesterday, and started up ok 1hr later i don't want to hit the dealership cause that will cost a fortune per hr. im searching high & low first, could be your alternator failure get it checked first for voltage another person said it was the radiator sensor on his car!.
ill post back if i find the problem then im trading down too many el;ecronics these days that are useless.

 

These failures are typically the logic module in the alternator. Change the alternator.