V50 1.8 Petrol Starting Problem
 

I have a V50 2009 1.8 petrol. Since new it has had an intermittent and apparently random engine starting problem.
The starting problem has never occurred on the first time I have started the car on a day. Sometimes it has happened when I have started it after it has been stopped for perhaps an hour or even 4 hours.
When starting the car, the engine idles (relatively smoothly) at about 400 to 600 revs - but there is no response when you depress the accelerator - it is dead and totally non-responsive.
For the first few times that this problem arose, by depressing/dabbing the accelerator, the engine eventually springs into life - sometimes taking 10 to 20 seconds or more.
The garage asked me to check the response to different actions. So the next time the problem arose, I left the engine ticking over at these very low revs - once I left it for a minute with not touching the accelerator; even after a minute the engine was still just ticking over - I then dabbed the accelerator a few times and the problem 'cleared'. On the next two occasions when the problem arose (several weeks apart), I switched off as soon as I started the engine and there was no accelerator response and the engine revs were very low and started the engine again; both times the engine started fine on the second start. The problem has never occurred on the first start of the day when the car has been sitting in the garage overnight or for several days.
I have kept records for the garage but there does not seem to be any pattern to the times when the problem arises.
The Garage has checked and said there are no error codes.

Has anyone experienced the same problem?
Any ideas please?

Thanks

to follow up on this...

I have EXACTLY the same issue on my 1.8 petrol with no pattern at all to the issues.

The car went into volvo (Main Dealer) today, they raised the issue with 'TIE' (no idea how it's spelled) but it's a volvo techy resource team and they gave the garage a software update to specifically fix this issue. (does that make it a known issue then? they gave the garage this fix pretty quick)
They've applied the software and i'll find out over the next wee while if it's worked or not. Hopefully it has.

Has your garage contacted the TIE team or had anything like a software update for this.

Good Luck

J

V50 1.8 Petrol Starting Problem - Resolution (hopefully)
 

Thanks Jason99 for your very helpful response.
It does sound as though your V50 1.8 petrol was suffering the same fault as mine.
Great to hear your news of a software update - I hope that it has solved the problem for you.
The Volvo dealer has very recently applied a software upgrade to my car to seek to sort it also - I was waiting to be sure it has solved the problem before posting an update.
My car was in for its second yearly service a couple of weeks ago. I had asked the dealer to try to sort the problem out (at this service) - it had been in before to try to sort it - but no success before. I provided the details in writing of a diary of use and the fault arising. They had the car a couple of days - and one of their guys searched a database (probably the same as your guy searched) and came up with this as a known problem and for which a software upgrade to the engine control unit - which they applied. I do not use my car much - a couple of times a week or so. I was waiting to respond when I had tried it enough to be sure that it has solved the problem.

Thanks very much Jason99.

I hope that this may help other owners suffering teh same fault with their V50 1.8 petrol.

1.8 Starting problems
 

I have exactly the same problem on my 2007 1.8 SE S40 as described by Disc Jockey and jason77.

Folks, did the software upgrade cure the problem?

A mechanic friend of mine that works for Volvo said that there is an update available that tells the car to rev to 2000 rpm for an instant after start up - this seems to clear the problem. I haven't booked mine in for this yet, until I am more confident that its a legit fix.

Any ideas?

My car has now had the upgrade for about 3 months and I have not had a single occasion when the fault has arisen again. My Volvo dealer assured me that the software upgrade would sort it - and they appear to be right. The description they read to me from the source of the information on the software upgrade pretty well exactly matched the fault that my car was having.

So I judge the problem to be sorted.

I think that because it is a known fault to Volvo for this batch of cars, I would expect that any Volvo dealer would load the patch to your car; I think that you have a good case that they should not make a charge for doing this.

I hope that it works for your car.

V50 1.8 Petrol Starting Problem
 

Hi,
I posted the same fault on here a few months ago as I have the same problem with my 1.8 V50. I got the software update (£14.99) but it hasn't solved the problem.....not sure what's next, it's not repeatable so the dealer has great difficulty seeing it to cure it. They strangely enough said they had never had any complaints similar to mine btu there seems to be plenty here!

Yup, the software fixed mine with no further issues at all *touches wood*

Software Update - what does it do?
 

Hi all.

Are there any Volvo Techs on the Forum who can confirm what this software update is called and confirm what it is supposed to do?

Release version, date etc. would be great.

C.

S40 1.8 Petrol Starting Problem
 

Hi,

This thread has been quiet for a long time but I was hoping to resurrect it as I've recently purchased a 2006 S40 1.8 which has this problem. It's fairly random and doesn't happen on the first engine start of the day. When the problem does arise I either have to wait for 20 seconds or so for the throttle to respond or turn off the engine and restart it.

Does anyone have a part number for this software fix so I can ask my local garage (Volvo specialist) to check if it can be applied to my car? I could ask the garage to do the research on this problem for me but I've found that it's usually easier and quicker to get reliable answers using this forum :-)

Thanks.

My S40 1.8 Se had the same problem and my volvo specialist pinpointed the problem to be caused by the thottle body.

I have since had a volvo specially made dampener fitted which was designed to solve the problem however it didn't fix it completely.

I have now had my complete throttle body housing completely replaced and so far have had no problems although it has only been a week.

I will look at the printout I was given by my specialist tomorrow and let you know what he found.

Apparently Volvo are aware of a problem with the thottle body, hence they brought out a dampener modification for the car.

Hope this info helps.