My 06 S40 has developed an annoying issue with the heater intermittently blowing out cold air. I had the car looked at Thursday while it was at the Volvo dealer for a maintenance service and this is how they addressed the issue on the paperwork when I picked the car up. "Cust states intermittent lack of heat from heater. Hooked up VIDA got no codes. Checked functionality of the climate system. At this time it is working properly." So here I go again, just like the first bug I had with my car relating to the SRS system. It took the dealer three different times to finally resolve the issue and keep the SRS warning off. Heat worked fine all the way home from the dealer. About 2 hours later I went to the grocery store, after the car warmed up and started blowing nice and hot, it started shooting the cold spurts at me again. This really is starting to drive me crazy especially with it being 20 degrees outside. Has anyone had any similar issue with their heating system and know what may be causing this problem? The car doesn’t have the climate control package and for some reason they tried to tell me the automatic climate control may do that to keep the temperature at the selected temp. After I informed the service advisor that my vehicle didn't have that option he just stated to me that they could only fix it if it becomes more of a problem. I would love to take it to another dealer but the next closest Volvo dealer is over and hour and a half away. Any one have any ideas?

 

I have a similar issue too with my C70 MY98. I think the issue comes from two issues. One, if you have the A/C on or defogger/defroster setting selected the climate control will once in a while start blowing cold air to compensate the warm air for defogging purposes (even the user's manual recommends that the A/C be left on almost all the time to work at its best) and is part of the climate function. The second issue is that Volvo heaters suck! Kinda wierd being where the cars are from. But instead of a direct transfer of engine coolant to blower for heating, the Volvo heater core is a bit more indirect in the access of the engine coolant (maybe because of the turbo system layout...) and the air is not as supper heated as in let say a Toyota or Subaru, where thier heaters can scald the dickens out of you if you are not careful. It's just one of those Scandinavian quicks you have to live with, with these cars. Unfortunately, I have come to learn that the cars have quite a few quircks to live with and in some cases it helps to define the character of the car... in other cases though, it helps to make you long for another make.

- Henry