Bought my first Volvo last month. 2002 S40, 59,000 miles. Good price. At first, loved the car. Have been getting very frustrated lately. Have only had it 6 weeks, I'm taking it to the shop for the 2nd time on Monday, 9/26/05. This time, it's accelerating (engine revving) while sitting still, idling. "Check Engine" light stays on. It feels like the engine wants to leap out of the car! FYI - the first time into the shop was due to a dead battery (car wouldn't start). Should I expect this?

Looking for any help . . .
Thanks,
Thomas

 

Sorry to hear you've got similar problems. Mine's in the Volvo dealer's workshop at the moment, here's what's happened so far:

My V40 had slightly lumpy tickover for a couple of weeks & then at one point last weekend tickover revs dropped to 500, surged to 1,200 then dropped to 500, surged to 1,200 & so on. I let it do this for about 30 seconds to ensure that any error code got recorded, then blipped the throtttle & hey presto, tickover settled back to 750 rpm.

Earlier during the same journey, the DSA stability control warning light illuminated (at a steady 70 mph on the motorway) and stayed on. Warning light only went off after the car was restarted at the end of the journey, when checking to see whether warning light was still on.

As the car is under warranty it went into a Volvo dealer for investigation on Sept 23rd. Got a worried call from their Chief Tec yesterday afternoon, asking me whether the car had ever been chipped (I checked with the 1 & only last owner & it has not been chipped - he said car had been back to Volvo twice for lumpy tickover & stalling problems). I called Chief Tec back re not chipped & it turns out that several error codes had been recorded & the ECU needed some updates, which I find surprising as it has a full Volvo service history, last one in June 05 & I would have thought that software updates are a standard part of any Volvo dealer service programme. However, half way through downloading the updates the ECU crashed & is now as dead as a doornail!!! Chief Tec said this normally only happens if the car has been chipped, so as it hasn't he has ordered a new ECU & is checking whether the dead ECU is covered by the warranty. Darned well better be. Hope your ECU is healthy, they're not cheap.

Tech - if you are reading this, have you come across anything like this before? Benefit of your experience much appreciated please.

 

did they pull the codes of the CEL ohio?

 

I had same battery problem at 100000kms which i think is pretty close to 56000 miles.