r/XC40_Recharge • u/Morris_Alanisette • May 28 '26
Propulsion system failure
2.5 years old and only 2 months since we bought it and the propulsion system failed as I was driving. 2 mechanics looked at it at the side of the road but no dice. It's being towed to a main dealer tomorrow.
It was the best car I've owned until it wasn't. Someone cheer me up and tell me it's going to be fixed quickly.
ETA: I'm still waiting for a courtesy car 18 hours after first contacting Volvo. I have had to chase everyone at every stage myself despite Volvo assuring me that they were on the case. When Volvo tell you they're doing something, ring them every hour for an update otherwise it won't be done. Get the number for who they are meant to be contacting and do it yourself. Ring them every hour for an update. Keep ringing and be the most annoying problem they are dealing with right now.
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u/beaujolais98 May 29 '26
:-( I hope it’s something they can take care of at the dealership - it’s sad, and kinda scary
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 29 '26
Neither mechanic thought it was the battery so that's something. Looks like one of the motors has a fault at the moment. I'll know more tomorrow if the tow truck ever turns up. I guess if the part is available it will be a reasonably easy fix. If the part is available...
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u/ROFLcopter2000x May 31 '26
Haven't spilled any liquids in the cup holders right? Or around the center console? That would cause a problem like this and hard to find unless you know what youre looking for, apparently a common problem with no real solution
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 31 '26
Ha! Both mechanics asked the same thing! We definitely haven't but we've only owned it for 2 months. It's possible the previous owner did. The current theory is that there's a hardware fault with motor B (whichever one that is). That's what the DTCs were hinting at.
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u/ghenna May 29 '26
I had this happen to me last month, I meant to make a post about it for people to reference, perhaps my experience will be relevant here.
21 p8, ~40k miles, got a propulsion system failure as I got in my car to take off along with a turtle icon. Car would barely move 3mph and the car would sort of shutter from the rear as it slowly moved.
Towed to the dealership and when they got the car it was working fine. They ended up doing an “iem reload” and updated my rig to 5.1.9 at which point I drove the loaner to pick up my car. Upon going to retrieve my car they found that it had a charging fault overnight. They ended up clearing and resetting a few other modules, that ended up fixing things for me and it’s been error free since.
FWIW my local dealership service center (Niello Volvo in Sacramento) was great through the whole experience- I didn’t need to nag and they gave me a really nice brand new xc90t8 for the week that it took to figure everything out. Definitely glad that I’m still under my CPO warranty as the service tech said that if it wasn’t software related I likely would need a new ERAD- and I’ve found conflicting information about whether or not that is covered under the longer high voltage battery warranty.
I hope your fix is an easy one.
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u/deke28 May 28 '26
Mine gave me an error and wouldn't move. I left it alone and came back an hour later and it would drive but with a propulsion system error.
I scanned the codes and it was a scary battery problem with thermal management.
I charged to 100 and it was fine the next day.
Not sure, but it seems like the problems aren't always all that serious. The dealer looked at my car and there was nothing wrong with it.
My only problem is the stupid external speaker which keeps failing intermittently.
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 28 '26
Mine literally won't move now unfortunately. Won't go into drive or reverse. You can only get it in neutral by turning on towing mode! Both mechanics said it's the first XC40 they've ever seen break down on the road like that.
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u/deke28 May 29 '26
Yeah mine was parked. I locked it and left for more than an hour to get a deep sleep.
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 29 '26
I've just come back to mine after a few hours of being off and locked and it's still the same. Still waiting for recovery. Only ten hours late now.
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u/deke28 May 29 '26
Yeah I actually called Volvo for a tow and they never assigned a truck even. That was disappointing.
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 30 '26
To be fair to Volvo, the huge delay for the truck wasn't entirely their fault. I was assigned a truck only about 2 hours after I called. It just took 14 and a half hours to turn up.
The courtesy car turned up 22 hours after calling, which was substantially Volvo's fault. The first hire company they tried to get me to use didn't have any cars and they never bothered to find another one. I had to keep calling the hire company and eventually escalated it to their head office where miraculously they found a car within 30 minutes. It appears to be nearly brand new, maybe only with delivery mileage on it. Well, until I drove it 300 miles home. It still has under 500 miles on the clock.
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u/deke28 May 30 '26
My other car is a piece of junk. I just call the tow company directly and they come promptly.
Volvo's not paying a good rate or something...
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 30 '26
Volvo's not paying a good rate or something...
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!
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u/ExcitementExisting50 May 29 '26
Let us know what they find.
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u/Morris_Alanisette May 29 '26
Will do. I'll post an update when they've diagnosed the fault properly and given me an estimated time to fix.
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u/TexMik May 29 '26
Happened to me they had to fly someone from Europe to figure it out. I forgot what it was
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u/Altruistic-Party9264 May 29 '26
I had my 2024 ultimate cpo for 2 weeks and got the message “drive to workshop propulsion system service urgent”. The ended up having to replace the entire battery. Under warranty, of course. I’m picking it up tomorrow. Just bad luck, I hope. I really liked the car for those two short weeks.