Hello,

I'm stuck at home for the fourth week now, and the XC60 is only going to and from the local supermarket (minutes away) a few times a week.

The manual is not really very specific on how to charge the batteries (the starter battery in the trunk as well as the secondary start-stop one). The battery voltage before charging was 12.1V.
I connected my little Chinese 12V charger to the + and - studs in the engine compartment. It started knocking out some 8.7A, raising the battery voltage rather quickly. As the charge voltage reached 14V (charge current tapered to 8.4A) after a few minutes, I heard buzzing and the clicking of a relay from the engine compartment. I decided to play it safe and stopped the charging. Am I headed for disaster, or is it safe to charge the batteries this way?

 

Does your charger have a trickle feed option? Chances are your battery only needs a small amount of charge to top off and unless your charger has a sensor to cycle off, you don't want to leave it on too long. Goal should be to put enough juice back in to allow the car to start. If you are able to start and drive to the market - that 10-15 minute drive once a week should be good enough without using an aux charger. Note that when I've charged a totally flat battery, my charger only needed 10-15 minutes with 10A to get the battery to where it'll start the car. You don't want to over charge a battery if you can avoid it, but I don't know if your car has a protection device

 

I have just purchased a CTEK MXS 5.0 charger (some threads I read about charging the battery recommend this brand) from ebay since Amazon will take too long to deliver in the current crisis. It has a 8 step smart charger and it's said to be "perfectly safe" (by ctek's own Youtube videos) to leave it on there, but I still go check on it after a couple hours and haven't left it there overnight just to be on the safe side. So far it seems to do the job and I tried to charge a seemingly dead battery in my S60 and tried twice but it just won't go past step 1 (the 1st of 8 lights for 8 steps charging) so I guess the battery is really dead.

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2019 XC60
2017 S60
2016 V60

 

Sorry, don't know if I should start a new thread since this is somewhat related -

QUESTION: Will XC60's 12v sockets take charge when it's parked outside with the doors locked using a solar battery charger plugged in the socket?

This is the charger: https://tinyurl.com/s8jrgj9.

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2019 XC60
2017 S60
2016 V60

 

Just thought it would be worth bumping this up for reference of people that land on this page after a search. The manual says, and my Volvo mechanic also highlighted, to never connect directly to the battery negative pole. There are sensors there that can be damaged. Use the chassis instead. As for your car, it seems that there are specific charging points under the hood. From the manual:

Quote:

Charging points

And an extract for the 2016/2017 models:

Quote:

Important

 

I got the car 10 days, it went completely dead. After jump start “12 v battery critical charge default. Now it was towed to the dealership. They did not provide loaner car.


So upsetting!!! Thank

 

I own a 2022 Volvo XC60, had same issue, it seems that if you have short journeys you have to periodically charge the 12V battery. I charge it about once a month and this issue disappeared. I usually drive car on short distances so alternator cant fully charge the battery.





Whole process to charge the battery took ~4hrs.

 

My XC60 B5 hybrid is 6 months old (Mar 22) and I just had this issue. Called out Volvo Assist as the first point of contact to investigate and the technician (can we really call them mechanics anymore ? - everything is done via a plug-in laptop after all) did his wizardry and sorted out the issue. For information, my car sits on the driveway for most of the time, but when it is driven I do a good balance of short and long journeys but he said that isn't really the root cause of the problem, so I got him to explain what that was to me as I had already read most of the posts on this forum after 'Googling' the issue and finding this before he arrived, so was interested to hear what the expert had to say. Suffice to say I was impressed with Callum, he certainly seemed to know his stuff and was already well aware of this problem as soon as he saw it and managed to explain it in reasonably layman terms. In summary, his explanation as I understood it was that the software on the car is the cause of the problem in the way the it deals with the battery management. The way the software has been programmed to behave with regard to maintaining the battery levels between certain percentage levels and the manner it keeps them charged causes a conflict between the 48v and 12v batteries to 'fight' amongst each other eventually causing the 12v battery to drain down. He recharged the 12v battery to 80% and reset the software to remove the dashboard warnings, checked out a few other things to make sure all was ok with the car and on completion sent me a copy of the job card to show the details and it also helps the Volvo main service dept later on to know what needs to be done. The good news is Volvo have a software update or patch that when installed is supposed to resolve the problem but it is not an 'over the air' software update and needs to be done 'in house' at the main service centres so I am booking my car in very soon. Although he was able to clear the problem, he did state it will probably only last for 5 -6 months before it happens again and that if it isn't scheduled for a service in that period to make arrangements for the software update to be done before that time. The 'turtle' speed restriction associated with this issue is dependant on the speed the car is doing at the time the problem arises. In my case, as the car was stationary it restricted my speed to approx 8mph as I found out when I tried to take it for a spin thinking it might clear after turning on/off several times (don't bother, it doesn't !) If you are driving at the time and the warning light pops up it accounts for the speed the car is doing at the time and the restriction is applied gradually but should be much greater than snails pace, enough to get you safely off the road or to a nearby garage. Basically, your car won't suddenly lurch to 8mph but you will notice a drop in power available. Hope this helps - will try and update this post in about 6 months after the software update is done to let you know if any repeat occurrences have happened, hopefully not ! Also, out of interest you might be glad to know he told me Volvo finally have the update to the XC60 being released in a software update that will include its location on the app (as my xc40 used to have), something I found really useful on a few occasions when I couldn't remember what floor I had parked on in the multi-storey and also when I parked in a field with hundreds of other cars at a showground event (I also like that I can see it when on holiday and have left it with an airport parking service).

 

Thanks for this information. I am waiting for my new XC60 mild hybrid to be delivered. It is scheduled to go into production around November 8th. I hope these updates will be included in new builds hitting the production floor going forward. I understand most of the issues with newer XC60's are software related, so hopefully the factory is keeping up with the software development on the production line. Can't wait for delivery of my new Volvo.

 

My car has been at the dealer’s for a week with this fault. 2022 B4 diesel AWD.

 

Unfortunately, this seems to still be a problem. Just saw a post on the New Gen Volvo Owners Club on Facebook. The owner of a 2023 XC90 w/l1700 miles on it just got the Critical Battery Fault while he was driving. I've seen a handful of other posts about 2023s having this issue as well. So the question is: did Volvo have an effective patch, but the software was not installed properly at the dealership? Or is the new patch not the magic bullet?
So disappointing. I've loved Volvos forever, and have my eye on a 2022, but I can't stand the thought of being stranded on a remote road in NZ, w/no cell reception, and a tow truck hours away. I'm a woman as well, which adds to the nerve-wracking factor when alone with a dead car. And I am sure as h**l not going to charge my brand new car myself every few weeks just because Volvo can't make it reliable. *sigh* Looks like I'll have to wait until they figure this out.

 

After paying over 50,000 for the car why in the world would I need to charge the battery all the time. Ridiculous.