My SRI was illuminated..cleared that darn thing. But my car is at the 40,000 mile mark. Looking at the Maintenance Service Operations I am not sure it is worth the cost to pay someone shop charge for much of it. I counted and there are 29 items that get check, of which, 19 are ones that:

1. I do on a regular basis
2. I can do
3. Have already been done (such as brake fluid flush)

Paying someone a labor rate of $125 and hour to see if my horn works, my seat belts work, clean the inside of my windshield, etc. just seems a bit lazy on my part. Inspect the final drive/bevel gear, pilot bearing, etc. yeah on that one I'll give them a go. Unless I must, I don't crawl under cars anymore. I guess the question is this - will they just do the things on their scheduled maintenance list that I need to have done or will they flat rate the scheduled maintenance cost?

 

I personally do all schedule maintenance myself. Like you, I do not want to pay outrageous labor rates for replacing air filters and fuel filters. When I bought my car, I made the dealership confirm, in writing, that I can do my own maintenance and that it does not need to be done by a Volvo dealership. I keep a maintenance log, with the scheduled maintenance chart, as well as order #s to prove I am doing it at the scheduled time. When they inspect the car, all they do is check for leaks and abnormal play. I am pretty confident it is half-arsed.

All that being said, I think it is a flat rate for the scheduled maintenance, but if you aren't getting the entire thing done because you did some yourself, I would think price would be adjusted accordingly. They will replace your filters whether they need it or not.

 

Yeah you would think. I have about 3,000 miles remaining until an oil change that the dealer completed over $100; there's the brake flush 7,000 miles ago for $225. Right there is $325. I'm guessing the 40,000 maintenance is probably $1,000 or close. Antifreeze? For some reason, a reason that the dealer can't or won't explain I need antifreeze at every oil change. I haven't looked into how the crazy engineers arranged the cabin filter. On either our S60 or V50 to replace the cabin filter I had to stand on my head in the passengers foot well. Yeah I'm fairly certain I'd be looking at $1,000.

 

On the s60 (mine is a 2018, just did the 40k service) there’s a fuse block in the way but it clips in on top. I suggest checking out a video first because you can’t see anything down there for the cabin air filter lol

 

I bought my car with 39k miles and they only did an oil change. I was quite annoyed when I had the car for a month and had to do a 40k service

 

According to my dealer, for my 2020 V90 Inscription T6 AWD, the 40k service is $665.

 

Was it a CPO? If it was a CPO they are supposed to do the next closest service before selling the car. But I can say with 100% certainty that the dealer that sold me the CPO did not check all the boxes. Oh they checked the boxes with a pencil but they didn't check the items with their eyes or measuring tools.

 

It was indeed a CPO

 

I definitely had some buyers remorse with this car as the salesman was terrible. This was my first car from a dealer and I can say I learned A LOT.

 

Your experience is that I tell others ... Even when buying a "certified" used car, get it checked out by a mechanic of your choice before buying. Depending on the dealer, their certified checklist isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

 

I'm guessing you know this, but I think it's worth restating. Per Volvo, the oil and oil filter change interval is 10K miles OR 12 months, whichever comes first. You mentioned your just-purchased car is coming up on 40K miles. Do you know when, in months, the last oil change was made? It really ticks me off that there seems to be some dealers can be so unethical.

 

They told me they did an oil change before giving me the car. My terrible salesman said he would give me the service history but he is full of empty promises. I actually am going to call today and get some things straitened out. I noticed a cut in the sidewall of my tire that I know 100% is not from me.

"You want to know when a salesman is lying? When he opens his mouth."

 

Very true and I did pay an independent dealer to look. They found things that I brought up to the dealer but the dealer said "those are border line, we don't change at border line." Well I liked the car and bought it. Should have bought the other one, the Cross Country we were looking at located at another Volvo dealer. The list of things wrong or went wrong on this car is not like my Volvo's of years gone by. This is my 4th and maybe my last.

 

My friends are having the same discussion. We haven't come to any conclusion regarding which brand, other than possibly Lexus/Toyota, might be a good choice, particularly in terms of reliability and cost of ownership. Full disclosure; I own a problem free 2007 ES350 (bought new in 2007) and a 2020 Volvo V90 Inscription T6 AWD (bought new in 2020). In our opinion, while the newer tech looks great, we're not sold on its reliability.

 

We have a Honda SUV that we purchased years ago, it was not a CPO. It did however go through their 158 point inspection or whatever number it is and the car had about 90,000 miles on it. When we bought it the tires were brand new, new battery, next service interval taken care of , etc. In 7 years of owning that 2011 car we have needed a battery. Period...nothing else. The car sits outside all winter. I look at the thick maintenance folder of our 2 years of V60 ownership and compare it to the very thin Honda --- the comparison paints a bad picture for Volvo.

Our S60 and V50 had much higher miles on them and they ran well without as much maintenance as this V60 has already needed. Our S60 had 225,000 on it when we sold it. The seats were perfect, the trim was perfect. At 35,000 miles I started complained about my peeling steering wheel and the boot around the gear selector is torn (well hidden). The seat squabs are leather or barely leather but I can tell they would never make it to 225,000 miles. I have a window switch that doesn't illuminate at night and probably was like that when I bought the car. I don't drive at night. My friends Lexus that he bought used goes on long trips and in 5 years he has had no troubles. Wife is looking into a Lexus. As my mechanic always said, "stop your maintenance issues and sell your Jaguar and go with either Honda or Toyota."

I wonder if Geely is behind some of the dumbing down of the quality? I read that Volvo is trying to free itself from Geely.

"Volvo Cars is plotting to buy out parent company Zhejiang Geely Holding and free itself of its Chinese joint venture. The Swedish (currently Swedish-Chinese) manufacturer has been hinting at the prospect of going public with an IPO, which most analysts believe would be bolstered by creating some distance from Geely."

 

Bought my first Volvo in 1998, Several since then. Have used 4 dealers and 3 indy Volvo shops. Even in '98 the Volvo service was less that awe inspiring. I have never felt that the people were top notch or that the service was "exemplary". The Indy garages on the other hand have been universally fantastic. I have wanted to keep my S80 forever but and considering just selling it and living a Volvo free life.

On the other hand, my wife's 06 MD was great - now she does take her cars in for all those service checks (and a detail once a year!) but the damn thing never left her stranded and ran fantastic. When we replacd it I was comparing a new MD to either an XC90 or an XC60 (really the Acura is in between size wise) but she voiced what was in the back of my mind -- "The Acuras are never broken, the dealerships is always super nice and clean, and I'm in and out in 20 minutes." She's right too.
And oh yeah - nearly all that ticky-tacky check stuff - they do it for free.

 

My friend has had very good experiences with his local Audi dealer with his car. Might be looking there for my next car venture.

 

Free as say a service add on after you have the car in for repairs for the customer. Now that four letter word isn't in the Volvo dealer dictionary. I have a lot of buyers remorse about this car.

 

It's kind of funny, I left an honest review of the dealer online and now my salesman doesn't even respond to me. Such petty children run that dealership. When the current owners father ran it, it was a much better place.

Mitchell Volvo in Simsbury, CT. A site to avoid

 

This freak'in cars gotta go. Took it to the dealer for rear brakes. The car has 40,000 miles on it and they told me "Shock Absorber Replacement - Front: (PARTS MUST BE ORDERED) X2-- LF and RF shocks are leaking- rec. replacement $967.94"
Volvo's have really, really, REALLY gone down hill in quality. I don't want this thing long term. Adding in the brakes, the total for two years of maintenance is close to $5,000.

We bought the CPO car with 20,000 miles on it. Within 7,000 miles a climate control module went bad and that was $1,000 --- lucky it was warranty. In 5,400 miles we needed new front brakes on the one side. Caliper was sticking. I looked and there was a service recall. Although the dealer bulked, I called Volvo America and it was covered under that TSB. At around the same time (5,400 miles) we had to buy all new tires. The tires the dealer sold on the CPO were border line, (I should have squawked about it at purchase time - shame on me) almost to the point they would have had to replace them. Ha! Our Honda that wasn't a CPO had new tires put on at purchase, we didn't even have to ask. The sales guy said the tires are close to the minimum on their 158 point inspection or how ever many the point inspection is on Honda.

The drivers door has never, ever closed as well or easy as any of the other doors; the bolt head on the hing shows a wrench was, at one time, on it. Why? Why would you need to mess with a door hinge on a 20,000 mile car?

We paid a premium for the CPO Volvo and looking back it was not a good decision.

I live in Pennsylvania and we have annual inspections. I'll see what the next inspections shows on those struts and maybe the used car market will be in better shape by then.