For a couple of weeks I haven’t been able to switch on my main beams on my Feb 06 V50; so I have been driving around with dipped headlights only and it can be very dark where I live.
As I was going to have to take the car to the dealers for its 60000 km service (I live in France at the moment) I thought they would fix it at the same time – should only be a relay I figured.
How wrong I was! There are no relays here (not like my Land Rover). Instead, I was explained, everything goes through a solid-state module, the CEM 31254903 (Central Electronic Module), which does almost everything on this car.
Cost of the module: 998 euros, cost of loading the software onto the module: 48 euros, cost of labour: about 150 euros.
Yes, 1200 euros for fixing what is basically a relay not switching on the headlights. Can I express here how gutted I feel? On the Land Rover it would have been a tenner and I could have done it myself.
This is a car that’s 2 ½ years old and has 57000 km on the clock we are talking about. If car manufacturers decide to replace old-fashioned technology by state-of-the-art technology, I would expect there would be a gain for us customers, somehow, like more reliability and durability. If it turns to be less reliable and astronomically more expensive, where’s the progress I ask?
This V50 is my second Volvo (after a V40) and I have, so far, been very happy with both. I have to admit to feeling seriously cheesed off with Volvo at the moment. I have written a 2-page letter to the customer service department and I am awaiting their reply. If they have any sense of customer care, they will offer to take a substantial part of the cost on themselves.
Anyone else has had a similar experience?
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