I have a 2015.5 Volvo XC60 T5 4 Cylinders 2.0L Turbo. The oil recommendation label under the hood says to use SAE 5W-30 meeting the ACEA A5/B5 spec. This is what the dealer has been putting in (car now has 64k miles). I just got a letter from Volvo stressing the importance of using the correct motor oil. The letter included a new label to affix under the hood. It says use 0W-20 meeting the VCC RBSO-2AE spec. The letter says 5 and 6 cylinder engines should use the ACEA A5/B5 5W-30 oil.

So why the change? Did Volvo screw up and put the wrong oil recommendation under the hood and finally realized it and are fixing it, or possibly after 5 years of study decided that this 0W-20 oil would be slightly better? In the letter Volvo mostly seems mostly seemed to be worried about use of the wrong oil "affecting the vehicle's fuel consumption and environmental output". Makes it seems to me that my be driven by government agencies fixated on mileage and pollution, and not the health of the car.

BTW, about 5k miles ago I started noticing a sort of knocking or pinging sound. See 2015.5 XC60 engine knocks/pings after cold start. I'm not sure if this issue is related.

 

Because of oil consumption problems.

 

Do you have any details on this? Is there some other thread discussing this, or maybe a TSB from Volvo? For a car with such specific oil recommendations, and for all the debating I've seen in other forums over more minor things, like is A3/B3 ok when Volvo calls for A5/B5, going from 5W-30 to 0W-20 seems like a very significant change.

 

There is a TSB from Volvo. Early 2.0 engines can develop consumption issues. They switched the requirement to the extreme driving oil recommendation, which models in other countries have been using, once the oil was more available in the US.

 

Coincidentally I had just scheduled a service appointment for an oil change just hours before I got this notice in the mail. So I called the dealer back yesterday and talked to the service manager. He was very surprised to here this and asked me to bring the letter in. His worry was that it would INCREASE oil consumption, and also felt that as an engine got older (64k miles in this case), if anything it warranted an increase in viscosity, not a decrease. He said he would talk to the mechanic about it. I'm dropping the car of later today.

 

I assume this is the TSB you are referring to https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/20...71688-9999.pdf

 

That's the one for the switch. The one for the oil consumption is TJ 31216 for the updated pistons and TJ 30087 for updated breather box and software.

Not surprised the service manager doesn't know. They don't usually deal with that sort of thing. The advisors and technicians should be well aware.