Air con has life of its own !
 

The air con on my S60 T5 SE 2002 sometimes turns itself on after being parked for a while. Is this normal ?

lol did you search the forum at all ..been covered so m,any times ..its just the system drying itself out ..

no mate, just posted a quicky. Many thanks for the reply though.

to be honest had me in panic too first time i noticed it....you will even see water under car sometimes thats normal too..
regards
Mo

I feel left out!! In two and a bit years I've never caught it doing this!

aye it can come on after about 10 mins when you've turned off, and run for 30 mins easily to dry everything out and stop mildew and bacteria build up. It's more likely to happen like today when it's been hot and humid.
Don't worry it, the logic is clever enough not to run your battery flat.

Same goes for the radio and any other electrical item there, it will turn everything off if the charge gets too low.

vipes

Still getting used to some of the clever Volvo stuff. Left the keys in the ignition once while I waxed it and ran the battery flat in four hours. (geartronic issue I believe)

really? would be interested in knowing more about that? blasted thing is suposed to protect it'self to prevent the battery going flat!

Apparantly the independant chap who looks after the car for me says he has had this quite a few times. Apparantly they quite often leave the keys in when the cars are on the ramp as they need the cars to be in neutral so they can move the cars and roll the wheels and after working on them for 3-4 hours the batteries are as flat as a pancake. Must admit it surprised me, having sais that I have had no other problems with the battery.

That’s interesting!
I understand that with the auto trannies to have the car in neutral requires the ignition to be ON (shiftlock disabled & depress brake pedal).
That means everything:
Interior electrics; courtesy lights, instruments, radio (& amp if fitted) and the vast array of sensors dotted around the car - along with the engine & body electronics; daytime running lights (if activated) fuel pump, transmission control module, ECU, front & rear electronic modules etc.

It would be interesting to see what the power consumption is for the car with everything on and no engine running…

Regarding the A/C fan being on – this is can be car dependant.
Officially known as the “after blow function” some cars had this activated/de-activated through the Volvo VADIS/VIDA system. Supposedly, the after blow function is ‘smart’ enough to detect if the battery is running low and switch itself off when the ignition is on the OFF position.
But of course if the car’s ignition is switched to ON – then there is a potential to drain the battery. This has happened to me once or twice...

As this gets asked a lot I'm posting it as a sticky...

Interesting comment, that. I have never heard the afterblow on my MY2005, but it regularly kicked in on my old MY2002. I asked the question on last year's service as the aircon was starting to smell (they cleaned it FOC for me) and they insisted there were no faults and that "it could start up any time" - I'm due the next service in September so I think I'll ask them to check if it's deactivated....