posted by
someone claiming to be Alastair
on
Wed Mar 24 02:18 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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This appears to be a common problem with the S70/V70/C70 and mine has started doing the same. From the threads I have found here and elsewhere it appears to require replacement of the Electronic Throttle Control module.
I've just been in touch with BBA-ReMan in the UK and they are looking for any information anyone has on the symptoms / frequency of occurrence of this problem (it seems from the posts that this is a reasonably common occurence).
Their website is http://www.bba-reman.com and if there are sufficient enquiries from Volvo owners they may consider producing rebuilt units. Whilst this doesn't particularly help me for the moment it is definitely worth calling them if yours fails in case they have started rebuilding these.
In the interim, if you have had a replacement ETS throttle module, can you please post a reply stating car model, year and mileage/year at time of replacement? I can then feed this back to hopefully assist them in determining the viability of gearing up for this work.
Thanks,
Alastair
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posted by
someone claiming to be rcampos@airtechniques.com
on
Wed Apr 14 09:41 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I had the ETS light come on today and had to tow the vehicle to the dealer. At first they tried to tell me it was due to bad gas which I found ridiculous. Then after some discussion they told me it would be replaced at no charge because I was such a good customer. Bull, I figured there was a problem with this component that they were aware of and were not saying anything. The replacement cost including labor was 850 US dollars. They only charged me for the labor which still did not make me happy. I will be writing to the regional manager to see if I can recoup my labor cost since i feel that the unit should not have failed at 36,000 miles on the odometer. It has had all the required service done and my wife treats the car like as if it was family. The model is a V70 year 2001.
Does nayone know if there was a dealer advisory or a recall on this component. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks from New York
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posted by
someone claiming to be geno
on
Wed Mar 24 09:22 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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what year is your car ?
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posted by
someone claiming to be Alastair
on
Thu Mar 25 08:03 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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Its a 1999 with 105k miles on the clock. The problem first occurred at 90k miles and was temporarily fixed by cleaning.
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Alastair,
You mentioned that you cleaned the throttle body...HOW???
I have a 99 V70R w/ 75k and my ETS light comes on randomly and hasnt really effected my driving yet. This is extremely frustrating thinking that a $1000 bill is in my future--but nobody knows when. I have posted this concern on other boards but I get little feed back, any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Warren
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posted by
someone claiming to be Alastair
on
Fri Mar 26 01:17 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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It was only a very short term fix but here is what I did...
Remove the throttle body. Easiest way is NOT to follow the haynes manual but to do the following:
1. Remove cold air trunking from LHS of engine bay (this just unclips and flexes out)
2. Remove all connectors from sensors on trunking that goes from intercooler to inlet manifold.
3. Undo the two hoseclips (one each end of trunking) and remove trunking (tight fit but it does go).
4. With a 10mm socket remove the four TCM bolts holding it to the manifold. 3 of them are easy to find by touch and the fourth a little tricky.
5. Carefully remove the TCM and unplug its connector from the wiring loom.
6. With a small torx drive remove the four torx headed bolts from the end of the throttle body. There are 4 at each end. I can't remember which end is which but on one end there is an extra lump. DO NOT remove this end (you'll see what I mean when you get it off).
7. Gently and carefully prise open the cover so you can get the end of a contact cleaner aerosol hose into it and give it a thorough blast. I emptied almost a whole bottle into it. Then if you have one, use an airline to give it a blow out. Be very careful as when you prise the cover open you also stress the connectors connecting the sensor to the electronics. Don't do it anymore than necessary.
8. Reassembly is the opposite of dismantling.
Incidentally Volvo quote 2 hrs for this and I did mine in under 30 minutes... If you do need to get the TCM replaced and have a friend who can give you a tow then do it yourself and save yourself a bundle of cash!
As I say this method MAY work for you but in the long run you may have to just bite the bullet and buy a new TCM. I'm still talking to Re-Man in the UK regarding rebuilt units and will post any developments.
Be aware that this should only be done as a last resort as it may well cause more problems than it fixes or aggravate the problem (I didn't get away with it a second time).
Good luck
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Alastair,
Wow! Thanks for the point in the right direction.
After looking into all of this for a few months, I still havent got a clue as to what actually fails in this component. Is it purely electrical? If so, that company you refer to may have an easy task of rebuilding these units and we could reap the benfits of not having to pay $1000's.
As I said before the ETS hasnt affected my driving much, but Im having a hard time relying on my vehicle for road trips...this is a '99 V70R were talking about with only 78k!
I will keep looking to this forum for any updates and thanks again.
--Warren
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posted by
someone claiming to be Alastair
on
Wed Mar 31 10:49 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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Hi Warren,
Well as I rely on my car I finally caved in wne to my local Volvo dealer parts department and bought a new throttle body, opened the bonnet in dealers carpark and swapped them over, then went to the service department and gave them the keys to get the unit reprogrammed and thus saved a chunk of money in labour costs (hows that for cheek!). If you know what you are doing the changeover only takes 20 minutes and requires no more tools than a 10mm 1/4 drive socket and ratchet, a 2" extension and a screwdriver. Much better than the 2 hours Volvo wanted to charge!
As for the throttle body, I stripped mine down to the nth degree over the weekend before I caved in. Internally there is a shaft running full length of the casing, two end covers, each with a throttle position rheostat (more on this later), a spring and a throttle position motor.
Each rheostat has two tracks with a common wiper. The wiper design in my opinion is poor as the end of the wiper is bent 90 degrees to the rest of the wiper but towards the resistant material, thereby acting as a scraper. This is I think the problem. Over time the carbon resist material gets scraped away by the wiper until the resistance is erratic, thus causing the ECU signal to be confusing and causing the TCM to shut down. The question is, is it possible to get the resistant material resprayed on?
If I get time and inclination I'll pull apart the old TCM and photo it to show what I mean and how to disassemble / reassemble it for cleaning (cleaning fixed it initially for about 15000 miles). I'll also have a chat to the guys at BBA and compare notes with them...
Alastair
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Alastair,
Well another development...
I went to my local Volvo shop (read=not dealer) a place that has a good reputation and I had a software upgrade done. This was to correct the "skip and dip" hesitation during minor acceleration in first gear- not something that was a major concern but I thought I would give it a try. I had read about this service bulletin here and had it done. The beautiful thing was my ETS was no where to be found! I drove nearly 350 miles from SF Bay area to Santa Barbara for the weekend (and EURO car show) without any sign of our favorite issue. But just when you think its gone it comes back stronger than ever...
I started my car the next day and it chugged at 500rpm and finally idled at its normal rpm (900-1000) after i tapped the throttle. Still no ETS. Drove around the block and >BAM< ETS bright as can be with a little drop in rpm here and there as I drove 25 miles per hour. I made a few stops (turning the car on/off twice) Soon after, the light remained, but no driving symptoms to report-- still raced a tricked out A4 on the way to the show!
I emailed the folks at the bbm-reman(?) and they replied with "SORRY- we cant help you" and that was it! Maybe because Im in the US and they dont do business outside of England? My shop did not feel good about the quality of a reman part like the all important throttle body, what do you think? I like what I hear about you doing the work your self and that will be my job soon. Im going to clean it first and cross my fingers that a cheap alternative presents itself soon.
Please keep me posted!
--
Warren '99 V70 R AWD
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posted by
someone claiming to be Graham
on
Sun Apr 4 06:36 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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Hi Alastair,
Very interesting reading. I am UK Based, and have a 2000 (old shape) V70 2.4 10v with exactly the symptoms you explain. Only 74k miles on the clock. Sometimes the ETS light comes on followed by engine management, sometimes ok for a few days then comes back. Followed by a maximum speed of 62mph on the Motorway! I have been quoted £350 to replace the throttle body by a trustworthy volvo specialist, NOT main dealer.
But as I am particularly frugal I want to try stripping and cleaning the module myslef. Did you by any chance have time to take the photos you mentioned?
Any further hints or tips would be welcome! Also do you think we in any way have a claim against Volvo, as this appears to be a common fault? (or is it just that the rest of the car is so solid?).
My E-Mail is lone.star@virgin.net Thanks in advance if you are able to assist.
Kind Regards
Graham
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posted by
someone claiming to be Alastair
on
Tue Apr 13 11:10 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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Hi Graham.
Unfortunately I haven't had the time to do it yet but now that I know someone is waiting will try to do so next week. Are you by any chance based near South London? If so I can put you in touch with Chris at BBA and they may well do the job FOC for you as they are looking to get into the remanufacture of these things.
As for the price quoted, £350 is a good price and cheaper than the part from Volvo! The part alone is £445 inc VAT..... (and we get off lightly compared to our US friends!)
Alastair
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I also have the ETS problem on a 99 V70R with 65K miles. This is definitely a problem needing a recall before someone gets hurt. My light was intermittant during the week then on Friday while waiting to turn left under a green light, I floored the pedal and the car just creeped forward. I was almost hit by oncoming traffic as the care just idled forward enought to partially block the oncoming lane.
This is no different from the throttle cable snapping. Can you imagine the same incidence of occurance of throttle cable failure? In my opinion, this is a serious liability problem for Volvo but like any large company, until the cost of doing nothing is more than the cost of a recall, they will do nothing.
I registered my complaint with the NHTSA and recommend anyone else (US residents) experiencing this problem should do the same. You can file a complaint at https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/ .
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posted by
someone claiming to be rcampos@airtechniques.com
on
Wed Apr 14 10:17 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I agree with you on this problem. I was lucky since the car did not even start in my driveway. When I did get it started it bucked like awild bronco. I am glad I wasn't driving since it would have bee a dangerous situation at best. If you look at my other posting the dealer tried to give me a load of crap. They never give away anything and all of a sudden they are trying to help me out. Yeah right! They know they have a problem and at 850 US dollars to repair with only 36,000 miles they better come up with something better than a case of bad gas in the tank.
I am going to file a claim and complain on the website you listed/
Thanks
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Wow. Same thing happened to me yesterday on the interstate driving 65 mph. That is, until the ETS light came on followed by the check engine light, followed by a loss of gas power, inability to give the car gas, coasting down an exit ramp and finally having the car sputter off. Then, it would not even turn over. Had to have ot towed, and my wonderful dealership does not have weekend service hours. Meanwhile, had to rent a car after almost being killed in my Volvo V70, 2000 model, with 76K on it. I am so not happy. This is un acceptable.
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posted by
someone claiming to be ling66
on
Mon May 10 08:46 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I took my V70 to another dealer last Friday to have the throttle system checked out for the 3rd time (because the ETS and check engine lights came on intermittently.) The diagnostics showed that it had a throttle module failure and it was replaced at no charge because the warranty coverage was through 70,000mi. I haven't experienced any further problems (yet) and was quite happy with the service provided.
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posted by
someone claiming to be ling66
on
Fri Apr 16 08:31 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I too am having this problem with my V70 GLT. It started at only 33,000mi. I took it to a dealer twice and both times they said there was nothing wrong with the throttle system. All they did was reset the darn thing. Now at 64,000miles, the problem has surfaced again upon quick acceleration. Has anyone tried to contact Volvo direct instead of through the dealers? I'm tempted to just get rid of mine, but I do love everything else about it!
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posted by
someone claiming to be torontonian
on
Fri May 21 12:43 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I had the same problem a year after I purchased my brand new 99 V70 GLT.
Brought it back to the dealer maybe 8 times for the next 18 months.
They replaced a component each time I visited the dealership. The last part they replaced was the entire accelerator pedal assembly. I haven't had any problems since then.
I always tell people who ask me if I like my Volvo "if you want to spend a lot of time and build a relationship with your car dealer, then by all means by one."
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posted by
someone claiming to be Bobdog
on
Fri Jun 11 04:32 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I've had similar problem. Dealer wanted to sell a replacement module. I found a service bulletin about cleaning the ETM and requested that it just be cleaned instead of replaced. Dealer says cleaning may only last for a couple of months -- then problem will recur. Does anyone know --- is this true or false?
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posted by
someone claiming to be DH
on
Mon Jul 26 06:15 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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Bob dog,
As I write this e-mail, my 2000 S70 is in the shop for the 3rd time in about two weeks due to ETS and Check engine fault. Aside from the lights coming on, the car got really sluggish and unpredictable at freeway speeds (it felt like a fuel pump/fuel filter problems I have had with older cars). The first two times, the ETM was replaced (since I guess that is what the computer indicated was wrong). The first time, it drove fine for about a week and then the lights and symptoms started again, hence my second trip to the shop. This trip resulted in another replacement of the same unit since I was told the first replacement doomed by faulty manufacturing at the factory. Literally the next day the lights and symptoms reapppeared.
I took it in today and said their best mechanic needs to look deeper than what the computer says and find the problem since car problems and going to the shop is a major hassle (especially three times in two weeks!).
By the way, I have not yet had to pay for anything related to this problem since the parts in question are under factory warranty up until the car reaches 75k miles. So if your car has less than 75k, I would push the your local dealer (and only the dealer can do the factory warranty work) for free parts and labor.
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posted by
someone claiming to be Mike from MA
on
Thu Jul 22 18:09 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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I believe we just had the ETS lamp problem our 2000 XC. My wife (her car) noticed that the car had recently appeared sluggish at times, as if it were hunting for a gear, most notably on the freeway at approx 70 mph.
She noticed it driving approx 30 miles the weekend before last. We took the car 200 mi this past weekend and at around 85 mi on the first leg, the car started hesitating, regaining, almost as if I were pushing my foot up and down on the accelerator, but it was happening faster than I could do it with the accellerator. Then the ETS light came on. We didn't have our manual in the car and I thought it had something to do with Electronic Transmission System or some such. When we got to our destination and shut off the car, the ETS light went away. The hesitation returned sporadically on our drive home.
Brought it in to the dealer and I mentioned that I thought it was transmission related (still not having looked at the manual), mentioned the ETS light and left the car with them. The service manager seemed aware of the ETS problem and said it was covered as an emissions item and that they would look into my 'transmission problems'.
Do you think this repair will make the hesitation go away? (seems to have but I haven't driven more than 20 mi) Reason I ask is that since the car is near 60K mi, the service manager insisted, no, demanded, no, threatened that I should do the service to change the tranny fluid and fix my 'transmission' problems. Said if I didn't he would mark it on my history that I denied it, so that if something happened to the tranny, it would be 'my fault'. I think he was just trying to get me to pony up the $689 for the 60K knowing full well the ETS fixed the problem and that if he did the 60K, I would think changing the tranny fluid fixed it.
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posted by
someone claiming to be zzzzzzz
on
Wed Aug 4 05:56 CST 2004 [ RELATED]
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OK - you guys are scaring me. Had the check engine light on my 90K mile v70, come on for a minute and then go off. Engine started to run rough on my wife. It finally died, and now won't run at all, like it has a dead battery, though the battery is less that a year old and was not cheap. I will be having it towed to the Volvo specialist in town and he'll open it up tomorrow. Any more detail that I can offer him will let him know my checkbook is not as his mercy.
Anyone else have similar non-driveability? Changing the ETS is easy to do? Someone makes a more reliable unit? More info the better. Thanks for any good advice!
Ian 99v70
zzzzzzz
duke@vika.com
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I'm reading this thread and talking to shops but I'm not getting a good concensus. My XC V70 has 73K and the ETS light is on with no drivability problems. Based on what I've read above I better get it fixed and not wait for it to fail. I have checked with several wrecking yards and they claim to rebuild throttle control modules all the time. They also say they sell them with a one year warranty. The price is about half what a new one would be but my dealership says it's not possible to reuse one of the these units. They say that the software download only works for a brand new unit. Somebody's wrong but I don't know who. The salvage yard even claims that if I pull mine and send it to them they will rebuild it and send it back and that it won't need a new software download. I love the idea but am reluctant to try without some further agreement by someone knowlegable, as my car would be out of comission for a week.
Any ideas?
Tony
Oh by the way if you're under 70K with this problem you might be able to get it covered under the emissions warranty.
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