Duff Thermostat
 

Decided to plug my ELM327 into the car whilst on a long motorway run so I could monitor the coolant temperature.
It didn’t rise about about 75 Celsius, and fell as soon as load was taken off the engine.
Me thinks ‘stat has expired in the open position.

Any tips on replacing it?

Who on earth ever decided it was a good idea to get rid of temperature gauges from cars.... may partially explain my absolutely pants mpg!

Car is a MY2010 euro5 D5 205bhp

Edit: found a thread on it - https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=197671
Think it’ll be going into an independent specialist to be done, too much hassle for the time I’ve got!

I read in a forum post that for a job which should be seen as the changing of a consumable, changing the thermostat is not the simple job that it is on most other cars. It's a poor design decision because thermostats slowly degrade and we shouldn't have to wait until the cars performance falls to a low point before realising that the change needs to be done.

On a previous car the regime was to change the thermostat and the coolant temperature sensor every 3 or so years to ensure that the running temperature of the coolant around the block and the coolant temperature reported to the ECU to control the fuelling were accurate and that the engine ran at its most efficient. It used to be the loosening of three bolts, removing the thermostat chamber cover, taking out the old one, putting in a new one, replacing the cover and tightening the bolts. 20 minutes work for the DIY owner.

Tell me about it! Used to be a 20 minute job, looks like it may be 2 days!

I'm going to have to get mine changed as well, a recent trip over the tops on the M62 gave a temperature reading of between 90 and 65 degrees. The DPF regen not kicking in if the engine doesn't get up to normal operating temperature during shorter journeys is a concern.

Its bad enough not having a temperature gauge, but Volvo decided to put the thermostat in the most awkward place to add insult to injury. :shocked:

Yet another example of what I imagine will be an expensive job to fix a part that would be done in minutes on other cars.

Perhaps if Volvo owners shifted their mind set on thermostat replacement and looked at it in the same way as cam belt replacement then we would be routinely scheduling the work every 2 or 3 years regardless of whether we had discerned faults because by that time the thermostat might be pretty far gone and the effects of that would be costing us money in fuel etc any way although we might not notice the gradual drop off in performance over the long period of time it takes for the wax capsule to degrade and fail. What life expectation should we have for this ancient technology component? Whatever it turns out to be, we need to factor that into a routine maintenance and replacement schedule for our Volvos perhaps together with the coolant temperature sensor which also has dramatic effect on performance which can onset slowly with gradual degradation of the sensor before it actually fails.

If your lucky enough to have the engine with the thermostat at the top left of the engine ( looking from the front ) then its a breeze to change . If on the other hand you have one of the frankenstien engines that has the thermostat tucked up behind the turbo its really awkward job . So unless your a masochist or enjoy torture bite the bullet and pay Volvo to fit one . It will be the thick end of £400 ( may be more now ) but worth it

Which engines or model years had the thermostat at the top left of the engine? :tounge_smile:

The early 2007 V70 to mid 2009 had an easy to get to thermostat. Then the late 2009 had the difficult version. My son had that one ! I believe that changed again in 2011 to tricky type. Volvo tend to change around for some reason . Dont know about later versions as have moved away from Volvo for a few years.
The simple to change thermostats are easy to see once the engine cover is pulled off.
Of course you could buy a V70 with the buried thermostat and never have a problem .
The symptoms on my sons car was that the heater never really got hot so he plugged a diagnostic in to read the temp and it was well low. With new thermo fitted car felt better and was more economical.
He met the technician who fitted the new thermostat when he went to collect from our local main dealer. He was well brassed off and said the book allowed three hours for the job and it took him over five hours ! and thats with a car lift !

If you do find out who he is please let me know, as I would like to have a very strong word with him too.
But then I'm a dinosaur, I'd still like the 1600E dash with the four 2" instrument cluster :)

Cheers
Bob