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Comments
Three major factors that causes the trany failure.
1. Internal trany failure due to high torque. (Unable to handle the engine power)
2. Coolant antifreeze leaks in to the trany and causing it to fail. (Bad seal in the tranny cooler)
3. CV axel lubricant leaks in to the trany and causing it to fail. (Seals between axel and trany fail)
For fixing the trany,
1. Dealer will change all the items that relates to the failure regardless of the type of failure and the cost to this is around $8500. This will prevent future failure due to other factors.
2. Transmission shop will rebuild & install the trany unit for $4500. (Not fixing the actual cause and replacing the necessarily parts. This will cause the trany to fail multiple times. Therefore if you choose to it by an Independent mechanic make certain all the parts related to the failure as been changed or most likely your new trany will fail soon.
I hope this helps. Good Luck!
Given the mileage, I'm thinking it's unlikely Volvo will pay for a new transmission. Even so, there are other things going on with it, in spite of servicing it regularly and sinking a lot of money on repairs into it. If they don't cover it 100%, it's really not worth fixing at this point. A week ago, I still had what I thought was still a fairly valuable car, and now I have nothing.
So here's my question: is it still worth trying to get Volvo North America to cover it? Best case scenario, they cover it 100% and I can sell or trade in this money pit. Follow-up question: is there any way to get more than $500 or $1000 out of this car, now that it's no longer running?
It's a real shame Volvo hasn't recalled these transmissions. Like others, I was aware of the class action suit, but at the time it didn't apply. Now it does. Has anyone else had to scrap their car because the transmission died? Is there any way to have Volvo compensate me for this?
Thanks :lemon:
I have the xc60 and it's perfect....but yes, the original XC 90's were lemons and Volvo has been horrible about properly addressing this when they should have.
We have an XC90. I am in the UK. It cost us just over £50,000 and is now out of warranty. Like so many people have said here we bought it as a solid investment car - pay a lot to start with but get "Volvo" reliability - so I was surprised when the gearbox suddenly died at around 55,000 miles. The AA rescue service diagnosed the fault from about 50 yards away "Its a T6 XC90 - it will be the gearbox" and the main Volvo dealer have confirmed that its in need of a new one costing just over £4700 all inc. after discounts. Volvo have offered a good will gesture of 30%.
In the UK this falls under something called "The Goods and Services Act". Goods have to be "fit for purpose". Like nearly everyone the fault has shown itself out of warranty between 50k and 60k. My thoughts are that Volvo knew that this would be the case, based on other failures before ours. They knew, while the car was under warranty, that it was not fit for purpose but chose not to recall the fault because it would damage their reputation (as has been an issue with Toyota in the UK). Quite rightly, if they had made it known that there was a faulty gear box that would suddenly fail putting my family in danger as it did - I would not have bought the vehicle, so I understand their reasoning.
The many hundreds of reports I have found on the internet are not enough. I need to be able to present a case with "witness statements" and I would be grateful if those people who have experienced an XC90 T6 with transmission failure (only this specific fault) would send me a witness statement explaining who they are (Name and Address), what vehicle it was (i.e. XC90 T6), the year of manufacture and the mileage at which the fault came to light. The letter must be signed for it to carry any weight with the UK court - that's just how it is. If you are able to also send any supporting document (like a letter / invoice / bill from Volvo confirming the fault) then that would be helpful. In the UK there is a second action available in Negligence insomuch as it can be argued that Volvo were negligent in not recalling a product that they knew to be faulty. the fault is such that it can potentially cause danger (sudden and catastrophic loss of power while driving). In that circumstance it may be possible to backdate a claim over the previous six years and recover costs already incurred.
I do not know if its possible to find out how many XC90s have the fault or what percentage is affected or whether any technical information regarding the fault (expert assessment reports, details of the part number) and so on may be available - help in that regard would very much be appreciated also.
Finally, if there is anyone technically minded out there who knows how to get this message to a wider XC90 audience then I would be grateful. Its really upsetting that Volvo have chosen to manage the problem like this. My view is that the decision to not recall a design fault of this magnitude is fundamentally wrong and potentially unsafe.
I have set up an email address XC90@yipes.co.uk and would very much appreciate your help as I have described above.
Kindest regards,
Anthony Gallagher
http://www.chimicles.com/volvo-xc90-transmission-class-action-litigation
As far as the type of transmission goes I was told by Volvo that the replacement transmissions are "rebuild" ones, meaning same old transmission, with a few new parts.
I got rid of my Volvo XC 90 after realizing that in order to keep it running I would need to put $5 or so at 125K miles. It needed new rear end shocks (self leveling, very expensive, $450 per shock), $1200 for oil leak fix, all wheel drive gone and a bunch of other smaller issues.
I am not doubting you for a moment - clearly you know what you are talking about but I am in the UK and when our vehicle died we referred the matter to VOSA - the government department that investigates vehicle issues. They have the power to instruct Volvo to recall a defect and rectify it. The official response from Volvo was that they had no knowledge of any issues with the XC90 transmission at all, ours was an isolated incident and they would not inspect the vehicle and so could not comment on specific cases. VOSA accepted their response and the matter was closed.
You ask which models to avoid. My opinion is that you should stay away from Volvo full stop.
The issue isn't that their cars don't last or that their gearboxes fail after about 50,000 miles or even that a new gar box costs more than the value of the car - all cars wear out and some are better than Volvo and some are worse. The issue for me is that they are putting their profit ahead of customer safety and appear to be doing so in plain sight. Its the opposite of what I thought I was buying when I spent £50,000 on my XC90.
In the US there is a class action suit for this issue. There are customers from the UK, Australia, South Africa and Canada also experiencing the same problems but although its the same vehicle and the same gearbox and the same fault they will not admit that its the same problem even when Volvo drivers are at risk and could cause risk to others.
In my mind that is simply not good enough. Volvo in Sweden would not even discuss the matter. I bought my Volvo because I thought it was safe and I have a young family. When I approached them after the gearbox fault left us stranded in the path of oncoming traffic Volvo told me that this was the first time they had ever heard of the fault. I called them because the patrol guy had correctly guessed the exact defect in the most minute detail from the side of the road based only on the make and model of the car and its mileage.
Then when the accident inspection service in the UK asked Volvo to comment Volvo said they had "no knowledge" and the matter is on hold pending further 'incidents'. Someone else has to suffer or get injured or die before the defect is looked into further. Then it transpired that at the very same time they said they had no knowledge, Volvo were in court in the US over the exact same issue.
This is not about trying to find a decent model Volvo from those available, its about how safe you and your family are in a Volvo. Volvo have chosen not do something about a gearbox defect that can suddenly and completely incapacitate your car as you are driving along even though there is a risk to you, your family and other road users when you come to an unexpected stop. They knew of the defect while the vehicles were under warranty and did actually extend the warranty because of it, but did not warn drivers and did not recall the cars. Instead they have chosen to profit from the repairs to the original gearboxes and the replacements which also fail.
In my case the "gestures of goodwill" after the event were not enough. Its my opinion that Volvo should have told me or my dealer that they were aware of a problem - before the catastrophe struck. They should have addressed it before the accident and before anyone else was put at risk, but they didn't. Ours came to an abrupt stop at around 56000 miles - just a few hundred miles after a main dealer 96000 mile service. The incident was avoidable and its unforgivable when they knew already that the fault was there.
The closest they ever came to giving a warning was instructing the dealers to carry out extra work during the service if the vehicle is used for towing caravans, although we have never been asked what we tow with the vehicle.
It appears that Volvo were already dealing with hundreds of other drivers who had hit the critical mileage and experienced the defect well before we did yet they took no action at all to prevent the same happening to us.
These and many other forums are full of Volvo customers and victims that have unwittingly bought Volvos only to find themselves stranded, injured or facing repair bills well in excess of the value of the vehicle often very soon after buying the car and its not fair or decent.
The bottom line? A new gearbox costs around £4000 - £5000 (retail price) and to Volvo that money was more important to them than the safety of my family.
NEVER AGAIN.
As I said, thats just my experience and just my opinion.
We ordered our 2004 XC90 new from the Massachusetts dealer in late 2003 and had the dealer do all of the service for the first 90000 miles. Since then we've been using a very trustworthy independent Volvo mechanic. Volvo's are not cheap to keep … having owned at least 1 for the last 31 years … and the XC90 is no exception. However, the day that we feared would come arrived three days ago when our transmission died. I suppose that I should feel fortunate that we got 170,000 miles out of the original transmission given the experience of many other owners who are on their 3rd or 4th transmission with fewer miles. Our dealer has offered to replace the dead unit with a new transmission to the tune of $7500 … less a 10% discount on parts and labor. They'll also give us a 2 year warranty. My wife loves this car we are considering the new transmission in the hope that we can get another 50000 miles out of it. But I am having 2nd thoughts about this given all of the negative experience that's been shared on this site. I think I've read every post and I don't recall one single post saying "we replaced the transmission and everything was fine after that".
I received a goodwill notice from Volvo the day before Christmas that they are launching a service campaign. They are upgrading, for free, the TCM software installed on our xc90. I already had it completed. Back history... We only have 80k miles on it currently and the original transmission did not go out but started to slip at 32k. Volvo replaced that one free and have not had any problems since.
Hi, just read your post after bying my CX90 T6 - could you provide me with PDF scans of the manual pages and even my bill with all the mechanic notes. I do not have the same problem with the car yet but would like to be prepared
i have a 2004 xc90 t6 volvo and it has 120537 miles on it. My husband and I came back from a 6 hour trip and got to a stop sign and tried to go but nothing happened till he put it in manual and had to put it into 2nd gear before it would even move. We have only had the car since 4/21/13 and on May 22 of 2014 it did this. It tossed out 3 codes but have no clue what to do pick and pull dnt carry volvo xc90s. One of the codes says it might be my control module which is the brain but can't get it. Where do i go to find a cheap reliable part. i dnt have a warranty on it for we got it from a place called choice auto. We had no warning it just was there with no warning and no symptoms at all please help. Im not hard on it i am also a mother and take kids to school and shopping I dnt even work lol.
kmart5 i take my car to a place in Sacramento called superior automotive and they are good i like them my father in law chose them and referred me.
Everyone needs to go to the NHTSA and file the problem for transmissions. The service manager told me the other day that the only way there could be a recall is if the NHTSA were to go to Volvo. And only if it is considered a safety issue will Volvo conduct a recall. www.safercar.gov
Volvo Cars of North America, LLC -President/CEO Mr. Speck
PO Box 914
Rockleigh, N.J. 07647
Cộng đồng internet việt nam chuyên lắp đặt camera quan sát và lắp đặt camera hồ chí minh lớn nhất.
We went looking at getting a new VW TDI station wagon. We started talking trade in - the VW dealer called the Volvo dealers saying something they will swap used cars. The dealerships were not related in any way. I overhear the conversation and the Volvo is throwing my car under the bus point out how they don't want it and how problematics the transmission is - I was offered only $8,000 for a loaded vehicle (even had that double unbreakable glass etc) that was in mint condition. I went to Carmax and sold it for $9k. I sold this thing back in 2009 and it still annoys me and I should be included in any lawsuit. The car had a beautiful interior but without a transmission it's not much use. Another thing the Volvo dealership did that was annoying was they refused to reset the oil change computer with oil changes - wth? They wanted a seperate $50 fee. Bottom line was they tried to be a premium brand but failed in so many ways and their dealerships weren't held to the standards or given the support that other premium dealerships have.