I started seeing "Low Battery Voltage" warning on my 2016 XC60 T5 with 2.5L engine about 6 months ago. During the pandemic, the car is not driven much, and it has never failed to start, so it has not bothered me much, and I thought it just needs to be charged longer. Now recently I have made round trip of 45 miles each, and I am still seeing this warning. I measured the battery voltage with multimeter, and got reading of 12.4V and 13.4V with the car not running and running respectively. There is also no visible corrosion around the battery terminal.

Is it time to replace the battery? How long has your Volvo battery last? Thanks much.

 

12.4v is bit on the low side for a charged battery. However, if you just charged the battery, either by running for a while or with a charger, make sure you get rid of the "surface charge" before getting a voltage reading. Let the car sit for a few hours or run the lights for a minute or two. Otherwise you'll get an inaccurately high reading. In other words, it might actually be lower than 12.4v.

My battery is also running low, and I'm also getting the warning. It's around 12.9v after the trickle charger shuts off, but after running the lights for a couple of minutes it's around 12.48v. It was actually 12.2v after first turning off the lights, but crept up to 12.48 over the few minutes that followed. Possibly I still have some surface charge.

That all being said, I will say that the "Low Battery Voltage" warning has been an issue for our 2015.5 XC60 almost since we bought it. Seems to like to pop up now and then, but would go away after a good charge. I did need to replace the battery, under warranty, after about 2 years, and now a little over 3 years later I've been seeing this message a lot lately. Because of this history, I hesitate to replace it. I have never had any starting issues, even when the dealer said it needed a warranty replacement (that wasn't the result of any complaints on my end, other than getting the warning). I pretty much consider the low voltage warning more of a nuisance than anything else. I wouldn't replace the battery simply because of it. Get the battery tested and see if it's really at the end of it's life.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. My concern was on the potential damage to all the electronics by the low voltage. There is a TSB to turn off satellite radio beacon, and I will check with my Volvo dealer to see if it has been done on mine.

I did not use a trickle charger, and the car has been sitting for several days since the 45 mile round trip drive when I measured the voltage, so there should be no surface charge issue there. Should I buy a battery tester? I have an Bluetooth OBD II bought long ago but had not used on the XC60. I read that it can record battery voltage during startup, but I am not sure which app to use with it, and IF it works on an XC60

 

Let me know the TSB number for the satellite radio beacon. I might do the same. I tried to find it. Was shocked to find 432 TSBs for my car. Hard to say which ones are relevant.

A battery tester is certainly a useful tool. Wouldn't hurt to get one an monitor your battery over time. No idea about the ODB II. I've never used one for anything other than pulling codes.