Hello to all! My name is Cindy, and I'm new here. I live in Northern Indiana, and my husband and I bought a 2015.5 Volvo V-60 two years ago. Getting and servicing Volvos has become difficult for us in recent years since our former Volvo dealership left the area and the closest one to us is over an hour's drive from our home.

Last month, we scheduled our second complimentary maintenance appointment on this vehicle to get the oil changed and all things checked. We were assured, when making the appointment, that we did, in fact, qualify for the complimentary service, since the last one was done a year previously. However, when arriving at the Volvo dealership in Kalamazoo, Michigan (our closest one), the service manager refused to perform the maintenance, because the mileage on the car was "too low." When my husband pointed out that we scheduled the service because the service light had come on, the manager promised to "get rid it," although he would not perform the maintenance itself. He reset the computer and told my husband to return after 8000 more miles, because he said that they do complimentary service in 10,000 mile intervals only (although our previousncomplimentary service was performed after 5000 miles).

On my husband's way home from the dealership, the yellow "check engine" light came on, along with the red "emergency airbag service required" light. Apparently, the manager has no clue about his automotive computer skills. Obviously, we are going to return and make him fix this problem that he caused. But our question is: with the synthetic oil, is it perfectly okay to wait for two to three years to perform the maintenance? This is our second car, and we put very low mileage on it, and it spends every winter in storage. We have never had a dealership tell us to wait for so long for routine maintenance of a vehicle. The mechanic at our previous dealership always did annual maintenance on our previous Volvo at least yearly, no matter what mileage we had on the car. Please advise if this is okay. Thank you!

 

A few things here. 1) I would contact Volvo directly to ask about the maintenance policy of dealers, and contact the manager for the dealer to confirm whether their policies line with the factory's. I'm wondering if you were talking to a service advisor or the manager for the dealership. 2) The service indicator light is not associated with the check engine so I doubt resetting the indicator could trigger the fault (to note on most newer Volvos, resetting the service light is done by pressing the trip reset while turning on the key (search for YouTube vids on how to do this yourself). So now the dealer will need to scan the car for the fault codes (ie "chassis codes" tell what airbag etc is at fault) which can then be cleared or repaired). 3) regarding oil changes - most fluid changes should be done on mileage OR time. When you drive condensation does get into the system so you'd probably want to change the oil at least once a year - whether you go the full mileage or not (which is probably why the service light went on - ie due to time not mileage). There's likely to be some guidance in the owner's manual and maintenance books on how frequently to change oil, coolant, brake fluid etc.