Very poor mpg at 21.5 mpg

[SonyVaio]

I see your predicament and hope it gets sorted soon.

I would hope there is no excessive soot as this is what the DPF is supposed to catch.

What oil is being used? This does have a slight bearing on engine performance and thus burn efficiency and as you rightfully point out constant regens can compromise engine oil quality too.

There is obviously something wrong here one way or another and as you say your running out of warranty mileage. Can you not arrange with dealer to obtain a courtesy car so they can have yours and get to the bottom of the problem once and for all?

Good luck!

[chrisdc]

Originally Posted by SonyVaio

I see your predicament and hope it gets sorted soon.

I would hope there is no excessive soot as this is what the DPF is supposed to catch.

What oil is being used? This does have a slight bearing on engine performance and thus burn efficiency and as you rightfully point out constant regens can compromise engine oil quality too.

There is obviously something wrong here one way or another and as you say your running out of warranty mileage. Can you not arrange with dealer to obtain a courtesy car so they can have yours and get to the bottom of the problem once and for all?

Good luck!

Thanks SonyVaio,

I've been keeping a low profile and hardly using my car as the dealer decides what to do about my DPF. Last i heard, pending "authorisation", they were going to replace the whole thing incl. sensors. That was over two months ago. I can't wait any longer because my service plan expires in a couple of weeks and there are other issues to be sorted. Car is now booked in at another dealer for the 28th (June). After that, one way or the other, i can start to do my own thing without invalidating my warranty. But not yet. Latest development is an "Engine system service required" message which appeared today.

With regards to oil, the car is using whatever Volvo use. Since new, no one has touched it other than them.

[chrisdc]

Right, an update as promised.

The second dealer has looked at the car and the diagnostics has yielded an error code - apparently the same one I got at dealer one which had them doing the 100,000km service at 96,000km. The fault code relates to deteriorated oil quality.

But they didn't just take the car sensors word for it. An oil sample was sent for analysis and it turns out 10% of the oil is made up of diesel. I forgot to mention that on the day of the service, they told me they wanted to drain a litre of oil from the sump and give the car back to me as it was. Needless to say I refused to accept the car under those conditions, especially as the oil had been changed less than 4000km ago. If the manufactures specify a 10,000km service interval, and the oil is “shot” in less than 4000km, then something’s wrong, correct? I'm not nit-picking am I? The cars owns engine management is saying “Stop, the oil is buggered”. Right? Draining a litre of oil is not going to improve the quality of what's left. And at the rate it's going, the quality will have deteriorated by the same margin again by the time 8000km are reached – still 2000km short of the next scheduled oil change.

Anyway, 14 days later the car is still there. No one seems really sure what to do. Now there's talk of taking out the injectors and having them tested. From my reading on these forums, it seems I know more about the car than they do. I've mentioned my forum findings several times and during my last chat with the service manager he asked me for the name of this forum and undertook to do some reading here.

So, to recap:

I bought the car end of last year with approx 95,000km covered. The car has been beautifully maintained with services done on the dot every 10,000km. Full franchise service history.

I was getting "Soot particle filter full" messages about once every fill up. The first one appeared at the end of a 75km drive on, if memory serves, my second day of ownership.

This was followed soon after by "Book service" messages. I called personally at Volvo to query this as previous services had always been done at 10,000km intervals. I was told in no uncertain terms that if the car was asking for a service, then it needed a service.

By the time the first available service date arrived (10 days backlog) the "Engine system service required" message had appeared as well.

Upon arrival at Volvo, I was told by a different service advisor that I shouldn't have brought the car in as it was too soon to do the 100,000km service and that Volvo HQ wouldn't pay. (My car has a 5 year 100,000km maintenance plan which covers scheduled and unscheduled service and repair work)

After some discussion amongst the Volvo staff it was decided to do the service. The service was paid for by Volvo HQ.

I continued to get the "Soot particle filter full" messages.

Subsequent trips to Volvo saw the following work carried out;

3 deadlocks replaced
1 turbo control valve replaced
1 headlight bulb replaced
A forced regen of the DPF
Capturing of error codes to motivate for DPF filter and sensor replacement.

Paperwork submitted and more than 2 months later still no authorisation from Volvo HQ.

At 99,500km (estimated) the “Book service message is back” (less than 4000km and 4/5 months since the last service) and the other headlight bulb has blown.

I finally loose patience and book the car in at another dealer.

By the time the service date comes up, the “Engine system service required” message is back.

The rest is documented at the beginning of this post. I can add that in the two weeks the car has been at the second dealer, the first dealer finally came back with Volvo HQ's response on the request for authorisation. Denied on the grounds that the problems I’m having do not warrant DPF replacement.

As it stands right now, the car is still less than 5 years old and still has less than 100,000km on the clock.

What I like:
I think the car's great and I was very impressed with the service I got from Volvo with regard to the door locks, turbo sensor, bulb etc.

What I don't like:

That authorisation for anything can take up to 3 months. Just before I bought my car it waited for about this period for authorisation for the Powershift “clutch pack” that needed to be replaced. As I wasn't the owner yet, I couldn't do anything about that but the dealer selling the car sure wasn't happy about the delay either.

That the cars “tech” seems to exceed the ability of Volvo's service personnel to understand and fix - at least not quickly and efficiently at any rate.

That there seems to be very little cooperation and / or poor communication between the various members of the Volvo franchise body. Conflicting info regarding when a service is due would be a good example of this.

That I hardly get to use my beautiful car because it's always broken or about to break. This is also partly due to me trying to eke out the remaining warranty by keeping the km's down – but only because I’m so busy trying to get things fixed!

Should I just cut my losses and run?

[SonyVaio]

So what exactly do they intend to do??

It seems like a pretty cut and dry case here. You DPF is blocked and the car is triggering regen after regen which in turn is contaminating the oil due to the excess regen cycles.

The simple way to sort the problem is to change the DPF. Ho hard can it be for them to come to that conclusion? As the car is still in warranty then this should be replaced by Volvo.

I would keep pushing them to replace.

[chrisdc]

Originally Posted by SonyVaio

So what exactly do they intend to do??

It seems like a pretty cut and dry case here. You DPF is blocked and the car is triggering regen after regen which in turn is contaminating the oil due to the excess regen cycles.

The simple way to sort the problem is to change the DPF. Ho hard can it be for them to come to that conclusion? As the car is still in warranty then this should be replaced by Volvo.

I would keep pushing them to replace.

They really don't seem to know what to do. Is that possible? Is it a case of can't fix or won't fix? I wish I knew.

As mentioned, there was some talk of taking the injectors out and having them tested. I asked them who was going to be paying for this - I brought it up because they told me I’d be expected to pay for the oil analysis if the results were negative (oil good). This seemed to take the wind out of their sails a bit. I think the parting words were to the effect that they would be guided by Volvo HQ and the service manager was going to do some reading on this forum. I've had no feedback at all since then.

In fairness to the service manager, could there be anything in the injector theory? I did a search on this forum last night – typed in the word “injectors” and then spent the next couple of hours reading about DPF and sensor issues. The only reference I noticed (to injectors) was a guy who had a Ford with a sump full of diesel – apparently caused by an incomplete DPF delete. The car was still doing regens on a DPF that was no longer there. He said at best it would need an oil change and a new set of injectors, at worst a whole new engine! I think it may have been a post by Shark.

In the short time I’ve had the car, I’ve only used low sulphur diesel (50ppm). I don't know what the previous owner used. (500ppm is readily available everywhere)

I'm under the impression diesels are notoriously long lived. Even if the previous owner used (500ppm) could the injectors be stuffed at such a relatively low mileage because of this? Also, would anyone be so foolish as to risk compromising their cars engine for the sake of a few cents difference in the pump price – especially when you consider the cost of the vehicle in the first place? Further to this, as the car had a full service history and the service schedules were meticulously adhered to, wouldn't Volvo service personnel have picked up some early warning signs?

Anyway, if anyone has solved symptoms like the ones I’ve described by replacing injectors alone, I would very much like to hear from you!

For the benefit of anyone reading this, I’d also like to add a reminder that the V50's (and presumably the sedan equivalent) WITH POWERSHIFT, do not have the additive tank at the rear under the car. They use the same system as the D5 and rely on extra diesel being injected into the engine to raise exhaust gas temperature during the regen cycles.

[SonyVaio]

I really doubt this is an injector problem. It is well known and documented that with the dry DPF's that the oil can become contaminated and the oil level rise. This is why over here every S40/V50/C30/C70 D5 has had a recall to reduce the oil level and a sticker placed by the dipstick to only fill to 3/4 full as MAX level.

What causes the excess fuel in the oil is the regen cycles. If you translate these symptoms to your car and problems I think it is blatantly obvious that your DPF is blocked and excess regen cycles being induced thus contaminating your oil with fuel?? This almost certainly will have nothing to do with injectors.

They really need to be changing the DPF or checking out the sensors to ensure that the sensors are not reporting in error that a regen is required. An ECU reload (software) may even help too just encase it is a software glitch of sorts causing the regens.

Good luck and fingers crossed you get sorted soon.

[mjb73]

Low mileage isn't really the problem it's down to low revs. I drive a truck and you wouldn't believe how much difference it can make if you have 2 identical trucks but one's been used on say supermarket work which isn't full weight and they stick at 50 and never rev high, compare that to the other that may cruise at the same speed but at full weight where you have to use the revs. if you then put the supermarket one on full weight work its so under powered and naff on fuel for the first couple of weeks because of all the carbon built up over time. You need to use the revs occasionally to keep the engine clean and I try not to use supermarket fuels. The base fuel is the same everywhere but they add different additives as they deliver the fuels to the spec of each company.

[chrisdc]

For the record, the DPF was eventually replaced with a new one (car was still up on a hoist when I collected it so I had a look underneath) and the control module was swapped with a 'known working one from a traded in car' and the oil levels continue to rise.

The injectors are back in the spotlight again. More thoughts on this anyone?

The car always starts easily, doesn't smoke, pulls like a train and is reasonably economical for a vehicle this size.

[Falmouthboy]

I presume consumer law where you are doesn't allow you to reject the car? Certainly this is what I would be advising in the UK on the basis that the car had a fault from day one, they have had a reasonable opportunity to fix it, and have failed to do so.

[chrisdc]

Originally Posted by Falmouthboy

I presume consumer law where you are doesn't allow you to reject the car? Certainly this is what I would be advising in the UK on the basis that the car had a fault from day one, they have had a reasonable opportunity to fix it, and have failed to do so.

The CPA is a fairly new concept here in SA (we are covered for six months). Unfortunately I didn't say anything to the dealer I bought the car from (it was a non Volvo franchise) because I knew the original Volvo warranty and maintenance plan still had over 6 months to run and I dealt directly with them (Volvo). I really wasn't expecting this fiasco. With hindsight of course, I should have taken the car back and asked for a refund.