HELP! XC90 2016 D5 chugging after 1 hour driving

[JamesBlair]

I’ll try to keep my description short and to the point,

Our xc90 is a 2016 d5 momentum with almost 100k on the clock, which about 1 or 2 years ago started a very strange intermittent fault, after a long (over an hour) worth of driving would give one chug, now this chug was like a misfire, or someone tapping the breaks. Now it was only very occasional this would actually happen, but over the last 8 months it’s become more regular and once it starts then it persists. And to note, all the other issues had codes or reduced performance issues, this however has thrown no codes, no engine management lights. Only the last 2/3 weeks we have had, esc turned off, city safe off and auto hold off.

When the issue started we took it to our local garage, who looked over the car and have replaced a fair few parts, air intake pipes which were burst, a turbo hose, reseated the injectors, and more, now the part replacements all improved how the car was driving and did sort some of the other issues we had but the chugging persisted,

After taking it a few places we finally caved and took it to our local Volvo dealer, and I’ll be honest we were really disappointed with the service. They were meant to have it for an hours diagnosis, but 4 days later I had to call and get an update, and when I went to collect it they said they would need to replace the air intake manifold, and that the swirl flaps are possibly clogged with carbon. That was last week. Now there’s another Volvo specialist near by which we are going to take it but was told to come and ask here as there’s such a good community of Volvo owners who may have had the same issue and already know the solution to our problem,

I would love to hear any suggestions, or even confirmation of what Volvo told us, we love the car and really don’t want to have to get rid of it but it really makes travelling north to visit family unachievable.

[Murph7355]

Not had similar issues with our similar age/miles XC90... but could it be the DPF?

Do you typically only use the car on short runs? Do. You have a light right foot?

Look up DPF regeneration on Google.

I theory it would throw up warning lights.... And you'd expect a dealer to check.

[rhd443]

Originally Posted by JamesBlair

I’ll try to keep my description short and to the point,

Our xc90 is a 2016 d5 momentum with almost 100k on the clock, which about 1 or 2 years ago started a very strange intermittent fault, after a long (over an hour) worth of driving would give one chug, now this chug was like a misfire, or someone tapping the breaks. Now it was only very occasional this would actually happen, but over the last 8 months it’s become more regular and once it starts then it persists. And to note, all the other issues had codes or reduced performance issues, this however has thrown no codes, no engine management lights. Only the last 2/3 weeks we have had, esc turned off, city safe off and auto hold off.

When the issue started we took it to our local garage, who looked over the car and have replaced a fair few parts, air intake pipes which were burst, a turbo hose, reseated the injectors, and more, now the part replacements all improved how the car was driving and did sort some of the other issues we had but the chugging persisted,

After taking it a few places we finally caved and took it to our local Volvo dealer, and I’ll be honest we were really disappointed with the service. They were meant to have it for an hours diagnosis, but 4 days later I had to call and get an update, and when I went to collect it they said they would need to replace the air intake manifold, and that the swirl flaps are possibly clogged with carbon. That was last week. Now there’s another Volvo specialist near by which we are going to take it but was told to come and ask here as there’s such a good community of Volvo owners who may have had the same issue and already know the solution to our problem,

I would love to hear any suggestions, or even confirmation of what Volvo told us, we love the car and really don’t want to have to get rid of it but it really makes travelling north to visit family unachievable.

I would buy a carlube double concentrate dpf cleaner from Halfords, whack it into half a tank and go and drive it very hard for an hour. Sit in manual mode in 4/5th gear on the motorway and rev it as much as possible when accelerating to join.

This will force a regen of the dpf and also, attempt to clean any of the system.

If you discover after this, it still chugs, then at least you know its not due to light driving etc and likely not a blocked dpf

[Backinavolvo]

Are you sure it is not just a lumpy gearshift? Sometimes i find the box does a weird one now and again...

If so try changing gearbox fluid and get a software reset (on the gearbox)

[wynnj]

When was the fuel filter last changed? A blocked filter or water contaminated fuel could cause irregular engine performance. You can easily check if there's water in the fuel filter by undoing the drain plug on the filter housing and catching the fuel that empties out.

[GrahamBrown1]

Had this very issue on a V60 with the same engine. The EGR cooler was blocked which it did have a code for but the inlet manifold was also blocked. The engine also had serious oil consumption. The chugging as you describe became more and more frequent. The fix would have been a new intake and egr cooler. I also suspect the inlet valves would of been heavily sludged up also and require considerable cleaning. We got shot of it due to the oil consumption. The chugging I think would have been resolved with the new bits. These engines rely so much on EGR to keep the emissions down they suffer getting blocked up a lot.