Well the car should be locked for the reasons they said, but that's not always going to kill the battery (we leave cars unlocked in the showroom for a week or two before we bother putting a charger on them). It is a computer and if the computer was stuck in one of any number of processes and gets stuck it can create a power drain, and locking would typically prevent that. At the same time, locking a car 3 times at a dealer sends the car into diag mode which then drains the battery until the car leaves the dealer wifi network. Lots of ways to drain a battery, hard to know what did it for you, but yes, keeping it locked helps prevent it.

If you are one who doesn't just leave your headlights on auto... the setting for parking lights (one above off) will leave the parking lights on even if you shut off the car. That could drain it in a few hours (I've known it to drain it overnight.. not sure the actual draw amount).

Why did you leave the car unlocked at the airport? That seems silly, especially when you saw it was unlocked and could have locked it with the app.

For the fuel door, it typically happens when the doors were locked and not all of them unlock. It is a door and the software treats it as such. A common scenario is if you set the car to only unlock one door, it keeps the doors locking, including the fuel door, until you tell it otherwise. When you opened the drivers door it didn't unlock the other doors. I'm sure there are some other cases where the doors are locked too, but that's ones I see often.

 

Well the car should be locked for the reasons they said, but that's not always going to kill the battery (we leave cars unlocked in the showroom for a week or two before we bother putting a charger on them). It is a computer and if the computer was stuck in one of any number of processes and gets stuck it can create a power drain, and locking would typically prevent that. At the same time, locking a car 3 times at a dealer sends the car into diag mode which then drains the battery until the car leaves the dealer wifi network. Lots of ways to drain a battery, hard to know what did it for you, but yes, keeping it locked helps prevent it.

If you are one who doesn't just leave your headlights on auto... the setting for parking lights (one above off) will leave the parking lights on even if you shut off the car. That could drain it in a few hours (I've known it to drain it overnight.. not sure the actual draw amount).

Why did you leave the car unlocked at the airport? That seems silly, especially when you saw it was unlocked and could have locked it with the app.

For the fuel door, it typically happens when the doors were locked and not all of them unlock. It is a door and the software treats it as such. A common scenario is if you set the car to only unlock one door, it keeps the doors locking, including the fuel door, until you tell it otherwise. When you opened the drivers door it didn't unlock the other doors. I'm sure there are some other cases where the doors are locked too, but that's ones I see often.

Thanks for your reply. Understood you explanation on the door locking situation. As far as the airport..I have used the same offsite lot for years (4 to 5 times per month) That's just the way they do things!

Thanks again...

 

Next time lock it with your app once they park it... just in case it chooses to get hung up again then =-D

 

The dealer is giving you total BS excuses. They have left our cars unlocked for days at a time inside and outside, while insisting that’s not the case. “We always lock it.” The VOC app is a lie detector, along with an Apple air tag. I like locking the the car from the app (only when it’s parked outside) knowing that they’ll be in a fun predicament if a tech leaves the key in the car too. Only a matter of time.

Leaving your car unlocked will not drain the battery in that short of time. You’d need many days, likely more than a full week. Unless you’ve been doing lots of starts and stops with little to no driving, repeatedly, and haven’t allowed the car to fully charge by driving a decent amount of time.

Either way, I can’t believe you’re dealing with this with such a new car. Anyone risking an EX40 or EX90 is gonna be in for a rude awakening.

 

The dealer is giving you total BS excuses. They have left our cars unlocked for days at a time inside and outside, while insisting that’s not the case. “We always lock it.” The VOC app is a lie detector, along with an Apple air tag. I like locking the the car from the app (only when it’s parked outside) knowing that they’ll be in a fun predicament if a tech leaves the key in the car too. Only a matter of time.

Leaving your car unlocked will not drain the battery in that short of time. You’d need many days, likely more than a full week. I can’t believe you’re dealing with this with such a new car. Anyone risking an EX40 or EX90 is gonna be in for a rude awakening.

I don't think it's a BS excuse.... I have seen cars die on us for seemingly no reason, but there certainly is a reason. Being a computer, it's just a matter that we don't always understand what it is. Locking the car does lower the chance of a drain. If the drain had been ongoing it might not have been that the last 4 hours did it in, but that they happened to be the last 4 hours on an already weak battery. If it's never locked, and driven short drives, it won't get enough time to recharge. I'd certainly call it "best practice" to lock these computers... er cars.

I wish cars weren't computers but they are. You gotta think of them as such. Maybe you shouldn't have to... there should be more "carizing" done on the software side, I would agree. But if you do think of them as a computer it certainly lowers the stress level because now they fit the expectations.

Look back at the P3 forums... Folks would talk about the low battery light that would come on. "I've had cars for 50 years and never had a low battery light come on for not driving it for a few days"... First, the cars were testing if they had a low battery to the same level, and second, they did have more constant draw than the past 50 years of cars did. So this isn't even a "new" problem, just an evolution of it. But yes, I'm on team carburetor and points myself, but I don't think many people would buy them if available, certainly not in Volvo's segment.

 

as a driver of several previous models looking at new Volvos, I hear more and more reasons not to. Are we really saying that a new Volvo left unlocked for a few days will kill the battery? So for instance, we park our cars in the garage when we go on vacation. My wife parks in the garage every day. I have never locked a single car in the our locked car garage. We are saying that I should expect a dead battery over a span of 5 to 7 days and this would be considered normal?

 

It's certainly understandable that a vehicle in any state of security (locked or unlocked) will require additional support when left unused for a significant amount of time.
Especially when electronics have increasingly become more prolific.

Just another reason to transition over to full EV, where the electrical systems are continuously maintained via plugging in.

 

Hi all. So similar question I just replaced my 2022 xc90 b5 for. 2025.5 b6 ultra. On my old car i had twice car went into limp mode with turtle picture. Dealer said it probably happened because car sits sometimes for 2 weeks (locked) they replaced the battery. Trying to think how to prevent it? I had the car sitting now for 5 days only and i decided to do a test and see attached the results. Strange no?

fyi i do have a dash cam running after car ignition is off but it has a setting to turn off once car reaches 12.0v

is this normal?

 

12.0v is too low of a setting. Yeah, Volvo uses AGM batteries, and they are better than lead-acid, they still are not going to do well drained down to 12.0v every single day, then sit for several days, then started up. Get ride of the dash cam parking mode and you'll probably be fine after getting the current battery replaced.

 

what about if i set it to 12.5 will that along with sitting for a couple of days drain the battery?

my concern is that battery charge is still at 74 percent but it says battery health is 6% why would that he so after 2 weeks of having the car?

 

12.5 is fine. Battery health is certainly looking low. If the test is accurate then you should be able to get a new battery under warranty yet.

 

Even the AGM won't sustain regular cycling every day in the longer term, you need a separate Lithium-ion power bank for the parking mode.

 

2024 X90 with 20k miles...battery died 6 months ago and was told I need to take it on longer trips and lock it anytime i'm not using it and also try to drive it at least every other day. Ok, sure thing. Took it on an 11 hour round trip vacation 2 weeks ago. Lock it EVERY SINGLE TIME I get out of it. Drive it every day. Still dead in my driveway this morning. Nope! All done. Selling it back to the dealer at a loss.

 

Before selling it to the dealer at a loss, make sure your state doesn't have tax credit on trades. You'd generally be better trading in that selling it back to dealer. And also, carvana or carmax often offers pretty dumb money for late model cars.

 

Yup! I was told it’s because there are functions/processes that will still run “in the background” unless the car is locked and then all processes completely shut down. Even locking my car didn’t prevent it from dying on me though! Can’t take too many short trips, can’t expose to extreme temps for long durations, can’t leave the car for too long without driving it….only 1 1\2 years in and multiple trips to the dealership later for dead batteries on a 2024 XC90 and I just called it quits and traded it in. Sad bc I LOVED everything else about that car!!