I have never had a car with coils, rather my old cars had distributors.

I recently had a coil go bad after 45,000 miles but my old technology cars lasted for years. Wow, what a shock!

So maybe the question is, how long to volvo coils last? or how long should they last?

Andrew

Just so you know my neighbour has a 2000 Nissan Maxima and has already had a few coils replaced. It is some sort of defect NOT covered under warranty! So Volvo's aren't the only cars with stuff going bad that shouldn't! It also has had a muffler replaced as well and on a 2000 to me that is unacceptable!

Ignition coils going bad is fairly rare. I've been on this and other Volvo boards for years and very very rarely hear about this.
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1998 S70 T5 Emarald Green Metallic, 2004 V70 2.5T Ruby Red, Previous Owner of Black '94 850 Turbo Wagon

I don't have any statistics but I have never seen a non-GM car with direct ignition have a coil pack go bad (and maybe only 2 old-technology ignition coils go bad - due to visibly cracked housings letting in moisture). I can't think of a reason why the new ones would last shorter unless underdesigned. Modern ignitions with or without distributors have a cleaner waveform which would put less stress on the coil, even though the voltage is higher.

A distributor ignition has one coil while the direct ignition has a coil pack - one for each cylinder. The presence or absence of a distributor would not likely affect coil life - the distributor itself is a more common cause of ignition troubles by far than the coil.

Was it verified that the coil pack was really defective and in what way?

I had my S70 repaired at Sandberg Volvo, they fixed my problem and it was the coil pack, but they didnt tell me which one of them. But it had one die at 45k miles.

The coil refused to work as normal. The car had one cylinder dead.

Andrew

The key word there you mention was "underdesigned." That seems to be an ever-growing Volvo trend.

The cars are safe, the engines and transmissions are among the best, but it seems that everything else is given the "put in the cheapest,and let's see if it outlasts the warranty" treatment. I hope you beat the odds.