My friend has this car and it has thrown about 10 codes that do not make sense (i.e camshaft sensor, thermo sensor, etc). This all happened overnight so we figured that is has to be the ECU. He got a quote from a local shop for $1400 to replace!! Is that right? That seems like a huge rip off to us.

Any feedback and possibly a DIY on this would be awesome! THanks for the help.

 

If it's the ECU, that's about the right cost. Did they give you a P/N? If so look it up on Tascaparts.com. They sell the cheapest OEM parts around and there a dealer so they should be able to do all the programing for you.

What year of car is it? The '04.5+ ECU's are easy enough to swap out your self.

Also I've only heard of one other ECU going bad in my 5 years in the Volvo community. I'd double check that it's the ECu before you buy such an expensive part.

 

Hah! his name is matt also...its a 2000 1.9t...with literally every sensor throwing a code (according to the shop), what else would it be? What makes it so difficult compared to the '04? We were maybe going to try to find a used ECU and change it at the dealer then have them flash it??

 

Talk to a Volvo/Euro specialist who isn't linked to a dealership program before doing this.

 

Yeah, there's a lot of us Matt's around Lol.

I don't know that an '00 ECU would be any harder to change, I just don't know where it's located or how to remove it.

I don't know if a used ECU will work on the car. I know some of the older ECU's out of the 850/X70's are interchangeable but (IIRC) as '00 or '01 the P2 (S60/V70/S80,XC's) ECU's were VIN locked and the only way to replace the unit is with a new unit then the dealer will VIN lock that ECU to the car when they flash it. I don't know if that's the same with the first gen S40's but I would look into that first before you blow too much money on a used ECU.

You might get some more info on 30Forty50 C30 S40 V50 Volvo Parts And Performance

 

Advance or Autozone (and the like) can pull and erase the codes for free. I'd erase them first and see if they come back. And you can get a cheap reader/eraser at Harbor Freight so you don't have to rely on anyone reading the codes for you.

The ECU's hardly ever go bad.