ETS light

[Spotty Muldoon]

Hello all,

Ive been running a 98 P1 V70 xc for 18 months-kept an eye on all known issues as per forumites advice-thank you all. Changed auto box oil soon after getting car and cam belt was done this summer.
Last week the dreaded ETS light came on (first time ever) and i prepped myself for a large bill and hassle replacing throttle body wassname.....
Yesterday it went out....My question to all you knowlegable Legdes out there...Can I stop worrying? The car has always had a little tempermental rev issue with over revving very occasionally normally on stopping at lights after a short run. On a run - no probs.
So please let me know what the likely costs/where to get the throttle body? Or should i rest easy? You never know!!

[Clogs]

I've had the light on and not go out several years ago and Volvo Sweden remapped the ECU. The engine was hunting - usual failure of the throttle system common to old Volvos with fuel injection. That solved the problem for a while.

Later - about a year the ETS light came on after going into limp mode. Restarts when warm left it on, but overnight cold start cured the problem, until the engine stalled/stopped letting the clutch out too fast. Codes said it was the pedal sensor on the accelerator as the car has no accelerator cable and the throttle is by wire. New pedal sensor fitted, but after a month or two, the ETS light was on again most of the time. It would go off for a while, but usually after three or four starts not go out. Pedal sensor was the cause. A replacement pedal sensor made no difference.

The ECU needed fixing according to the dealer, but by this time Volvo doesn't support old ECU (on a 1999 car) fixes or sell a new ECU. One could send away the ECU, but that has a cost and the car drove perfectly well with the ETS light on all the time. Once or twice it went into limp mode, but switching off and restarting cured that. The light on wasn't an MoT fail and cancelling the codes meant no problem for at least three restarts. I just lived with a yellow light being a bit irritating at night. We went to France, Austria, Italy - twenty thousand miles with this wretched light not going out.

Three years later after a service this year in June, the codes were cancelled and the ETS goes out every start... the car was very hot this June and presumably very dried out inside. So far for the last 4 months - no problems!

You need to see what code comes up.... it may be an easy fix, or a mystery like pedal sensor fault. If the car drives OK, then the problem may just be the old ECU not working 100% as there are hundreds of permutations in the software.