Hi All,

It's probably got colder where you are too, well went for quick jaunt around town and it was blowing cold air in all electric mode, when the engines running I do have heat. Anyone else experience this joy?

 

New to the Forum and the Recharge but from what I'm seeing in "building" my car on-line is that the heater is electric. From that I gather it should function identically regardless of ICE operation or not. Now there could be a parameter set somewhere or programmed by Volvo to run the electric heater at a lower energy level when in purely electric mode. If I run my BMW in Eco-Pro mode, it will scale back the air-conditioner to not use as much gas so if the car gets a little too warm I'll change modes.

 

Have you checked the auxiliary heater is activated?

1. Open Climate view in the center display
2. Press the ... menu item
3. Set "Automatic Start of Auxiliary Heater" to On

If this is set to Off, there is no heat source in Pure (or Hybrid?) mode.

This appears to set to Off by default (at least mine was). My drive to work this morning was cozy :-). It goes without saying using the aux heater will affect your range.

 

I'm in the process of having my second auxiliary heater, PHEV, installed. Volvo has had a problem for some time with these heaters which have to be used when you are in pure mode since the engine is not running. I'm told that Volvo has fixed the problem so I'll wait and see in the next month. I'm in Iowa and need that heater as I like to run in pure electric. Even with long trips (I have 20,000 miles on this vehicle) I am averaging over 40 miles per gallon. Much of my driving is in town but with longer trips out of state it changes the average down as you can imagine.

 

Yes I'm on my second auxiliary heater. The PHEV unit is defective and needs to be replaced. I'm told that Provo has now figured out the problem and replaced the defective part or defective design

 

I have this problem too in a brand new S60 T8. The heater has never worked since the car was new. I'm currently told Volvo does not have any replacement heaters available and also does not have the components required to manufacture replacement heaters. There is no ETA for replacement parts, so I would advise caution in purchasing any of these T8 powertrain vehicles.

This is my first Volvo and while the driving experience is quite good, the service experience and number of problems with this new car so far have me in the "would not do this again" camp.

 

Update: I heard from the dealer today that this has now become a widespread problem and they've had more come in since the weather started getting colder. Apparently Volvo is aware of the epidemic but not yet able to address the issue.

The good news is that the regular ICE heater core still works, but I'm wondering if the lack of a high voltage heater might mean that battery pack temps are not maintained properly. One has to wonder what impact that may have on subsequent battery life. Sounds like a future class action in the making. Hopefully they get it resolved quickly, but what I'm hearing is not encouraging.

 

Yep, it's an epidemic. I have a new 2022 S60 Recharge Ext Battery with no heat in Pure and Hybrid mode. The dealership told me the part is on back order and no ETA at all. I contacted Volvo for a buy back and they said no. They did offer to make one car payment, which is nice. However, I can't enjoy electric mode in the winter at all. I'm in contact with a lemon law attorney who stated that he's recently settled a couple Volvo Heat/AC cases.

 

PS I just had my second heating unit for when in pure mode replaced for the second time. I'm told that this time Volvo thinks they have it fixed, we will take

 

Could you please keep us updated on feedback from the attorney? I'm not sure if this rises to lemon status, but if there's a reasonable basis for suggesting that it qualifies that would certainly make negotiations with Volvo easier.

 

I have learnt today from my dealer in Spain that in the new models (I have a brand new 2023 XC60 T6 Recharge plug-in hybrid) Volvo has disabled the electric heater. The only way to get heating while driving in PURE or HYBRID modes is by activating the auxiliary heater, which is a heat pump that burns gasoline and emits unfiltered gases. A very smart engineering solution to be able to falsely portray increased electric range. I consider this a scam, both economically and environmentally. Nowhere Volvo has stated that this is the way these cars work. I think Volvo might be liable for incomplete or incorrect marketing materials, and environmental agencies would do well by checking the unfiltered emissions produced by these heat pumps.

 

Update from my dealer: the parts are still not available, and they estimate another month based on how long they've seen previous deliveries take. If that prediction ends up being accurate, it will end up taking about two months for mine to be fixed.

Any updates from others? @geosh ?

 

Update:

After my lawyer sent a letter of demand, the part showed up. All-Star Volv,o in Baton Rouge, LA sucks! No loaners, ever! I asked when I bought the car if they provide loaners, of course the salesman said they did. I’m actually trading mine in today, I cannot rent a car and have no eta of when the repair will be fixed. Terrible customer service from Volvo corporate and All Star Volvo. I’m getting an Audi Q4, no other dealerships would give a decent trade-in value. Most dealers offered $40k and that includes CarMax. At least “when” the Audi breaks, I’ll have a loaner! Good luck and try and stay warm.

 

Thank you so much for sharing this update. I don't blame you for trading out. Not only might you get a loaner, but it's likely that Audi will actually be able to fix the problem in less than 2 months. I'm considering doing the same thing, although the financial hit, while ameliorated by the tax credit, adds to the bitter pill of this whole experience.

I'm glad yours at least was taken care of.

May I ask: what was the rationale the lawyer used to drive action? A demand for a lemon law buyback?

 

Update: the part has arrived (apparently it was expedited in some way, which tells you how severe the parts situation is considering it's been almost two months since I first took it in), so my car is back at the dealer this week to have the heater replaced, the "Volvo on Call Service Required" issue fixed, and the gravel sound removed from the steering column. The dealer has been great to work with and they've supplied a loaner while that car is in the shop. Volvo has also offered some compensation and, in a real credit to the company, has not so far asked me to sign anything or commit to an NDA in order to receive it.

Will update once I get it back.

 

I have the car back and the heater works great now. The SA said that the part had been redesigned. In his estimation, "pretty much all of them" had gone bad at least once, so hopefully the new part design will fix the issue.

I tried the remote pre-conditioning from the app and it worked perfectly. The nice thing about the electric heater is that heat delivery is essentially immediate, even on cold start.

They also replaced a faulty control module which was causing the "Volvo on Call Service Required" error.

The steering wheel still sounds like walking on creaky floorboards, but overall things are in much better shape.

 

I have a 2022 XC90 recharge and also have no heat in Pure or Hybrid modes. I took it to the dealer and they said the High Voltage Coolant Heater needs to be replaced and the part is on back order and there’s no estimate on when it will come. This seems insane to me. It should be a full recall as it seems like lots of recharges have this issue. They dealer told me “just drive in gas mode.” I explained to him that I bought an EV to use as an EV. This is so unacceptable.

 

I suggest you making some more noise about this. Parts are available, they're just being put into new cars instead of going to customers. Check inventory for your local dealer and you'll likely see many Recharge models either on site or enroute. My local dealer had 4 on the lot and 34 enroute. I pointed this out to the dealer and to Volvo customer service. No idea if it made any difference, but Volvo corporate did agree to provide some compensation and the dealer was subsequently able to get the part.

I agree that it's an insane situation for any new car. Just be grateful that your steering wheel doesn't sound like 100 year old creaky floorboards every time you turn the wheel. That gets old quickly too . They've already tried to fix that twice.

Best of luck in obtaining a resolution!

 

I agree. I called Volvo corporate yesterday and asked why there hasn’t been a recall given how widespread the issue is. They said they are pondering a recall. I also asked about compensation and they said they’d offer something but only after the fix is complete but they cannot give me a date for the fix.

 

At a minimum I think they're going to need to extend the warranty on this component, even if they don't make it an actual recall.

In my view, a recall may be warranted because although it's true that you can get heat with the engine running, if the engine isn't warm and the windows fog up quickly on the road it could potentially be dangerous. I had this happen at least once. The condensation sensing/mitigation system doesn't work properly if heat isn't available. Mine is fixed now, but if you can reproduce this behavior in pure mode you could report it to NHTSA in order to apply additional pressure.