D4 VEA 'add 0.5L' oil level warning

[Zebster]

Originally Posted by XC90Mk1

I am absolutely against it 100%. Manually a dipstick is a tube with a rod pushed in. How does it fail? How do you misread it? Putting electrical sensors in and having them calibrated is absurd. I would go as far as to say I wouldn’t want a vehicle with that set up.

While I really want to disagree with you and your Fred Dibnah-like yearning for a primitive dipstick, the apparently unreliable and/or inconsistent manner in which Volvo have implemented an electronic substitute in the VEA engine means that I am currently forced to agree with you.

Originally Posted by Clan

you can top it up yourself , it tells you how much to put in .. The only trouble encountered with these gauges in my experience is when they have been neglected by the person who is doing the oil change by not following the correct procedure .. . The vast majority have no problems the ones that do seem to congregate here which gives a false impression of real world reliability.
With the old dipstick system by the time the oil PRESSURE ( not level) light came on it was very close to too late .

I was told by the system to put in 0.5L and the guage showed the level to be below minimum. Instead I added only 0.25L and the gauge then jumped up all the way to maximum... obviously this monitoring system cannot be trusted. However I take your point that people with car problems (and people who like to whinge) are disproportionately represented on car forums.

There are several reports on the forum of people dutifully obeying repeat instructions to add 0.5L of engine oil, then being informed by their dealer that they have overfilled the sump. Again, this does suggest that the monitoring system is unfit for purpose.

It is hard for me to believe that a Volvo dealer could either fail to correctly reset the system or to have added the wrong volume of oil at the last service. Nor how either of those failings could properly explain the issue that I have recently suffered.