My daughters 2010 has always had a slight chug chug sounding idle that just doesn't sound normal to me. Is this a inherent 5 cylinder engine design that's normal? Never throws a code runs great and smooths out as RPMs are increased. Almost sounds diesel like only at idle. I was looking for the idle control valve but being that these are drive by wire it doesn't have one. I have cleaned the Throttle body but no difference. All vacuum hoses seem good. Don't know what else to look for.

 

did you listen for any exhaust leaks? How many miles on the car and is it due for a service interval? Could be a weak coil pack or if you don't regularly use premium, try throwing some injector cleaner in the tank (ie Techron) and run a couple tanks of 93 for the next 500 or so miles to see if you can clean up the injectors a tad.

 

Car has 60K miles. So should idle be just as smooth as any other 4cyl car like Toyota/Nissan? I'll check into the Coilpacks,

 

There's not much maintenance due at 60K - assume you're keeping to the book, the plugs are not due until 75K miles, coils should not be an issue, air filter was due at 37,500, oil every 7500 with synthetic... Curious if you're sensing the AC compressor cycling and bumping the idle. Try turning off the climate control / AC. Other than running some FI cleaner and 93 octane to keep things clean, I'd say the car is probably acting normal.

 

The inline 5 usually isn't quite as smooth as a 4 because of the odd firing order but it should still be smooth.

 

I'm tending to agree that 5 cylinder is just not as smooth and since ours runs great and not throwing CELs that it must be a Volvo normal. I will go one step further and ohm out the coil packs but don't expect anything out of ordinary. I think it would be throwing some p300 codes if it were.