Unfortunately, it is a known problem. First step, in my opinion, and which you've already done, is to start working closely with a Volvo dealer. If it is a ring problem, they are your best channel for getting some relief (i.e. $). And yes, they will make damn sure it is the rings before replacing them to protect themselves.

I think you have to be in 500 to 1000 miles per quart range for it to be deemed unacceptable by Volvo. You and your dealer will need clear evidnce that this is the case, so work with them to document your oil consumption properly.

 

Unfortunately, it is a known problem. First step, in my opinion, and which you've already done, is to start working closely with a Volvo dealer. If it is a ring problem, they are your best channel for getting some relief (i.e. $). And yes, they will make damn sure it is the rings before replacing them to protect themselves.

I think you have to be in 500 to 1000 miles per quart range for it to be deemed unacceptable by Volvo. You and your dealer will need clear evidnce that this is the case, so work with them to document your oil consumption properly.

Update: Volvo is now 'offering' an oil consumption service for $302. Oh AND an oil service at the beginning of service for an additional $169. IF, after driving a thousand miles and returning to dealership for oil measuring, they determine that the engine is using a quart of oil every 600 miles or less, they will A) reimburse your $302 and B) talk to Volvo Rep to see if there's anything they can do. My oil light started coming on at 97k. Still under CPO and documented at dealership. I spent the $302 plus $169 at 116k miles only to be told the engine wasn't using enough oil to worry about- a quart per 1k miles. Mileage is now at 121k, I've documented every quart of oil added (with photos of message and odometer, dates on photos) and waiting til it's using a quart every 500 miles before I attempt consumption test again. By the way, the dealership did not tell me in advance about the 600 miles ahs they also reverted to litres in their literature. I've called them and have gotten mixed evasive answers. They have also said a quart of oil every 1k miles is 'normal'. Not in my book, sorry. The only other volvo I've owned (and I've had 14 so far) that started using oil was a '81 245 with 318k miles on it. I was adding one quart between oil changes at 3k miles. So. Not buying the normal consumption line.
I welcome any info and or advice.
I've called Volvo of NA and lodged a complaint but they won't open a case on it until I take it back to the dealership for another consumption test( read $471) And as an aside, I've called dealership twice today to make appt for 120k service and they have not returned my call. Huh.

 

Just how common is this ? Any guesses percentage wise ?

 

My wife and I bought a 2015 v60 T5 drive-e back in March of this year with 56k miles. The Carfax showed that the car had it's regular maintenance by Volvo dealers in NC and SC up to the 50k interval. The Cadillac/GMC dealership we bought the car from claimed that they had just done a oil and filter change before putting it on the market.

At 58k we get the add a quart message. Naively figuring the dealer might have never seen a car without a dipstick; they probably had not wanted to overfill it, I did not think much of it and stopped at the auto parts store for my first bottle of Castrol Edge.
At 60k worried that maybe the dealer never had done the oil change, I figured better safe than sorry and had a local ASE certified shop do a full synthetic oil change for me.
At 62k I get the light again, call the Cadillac dealer, told oil burn is normal in turbos, and I just learn to carry extra oil in the trunk.
At 63k+ when I get the light again, I call the Volvo dealer an hour away. They say it is not normal and want to see the car. They do the oil trap (pcv valve) for $489.

At 65k+ oil light comes back on, I immediately top off and call the Volvo dealer back. They took it in and said that it needed the piston/ring job for $4900+. The Volvo dealer said that they would go to bat with VCUSA seeking some goodwill. Received a phone call from the dealer on the next day saying that Volvo Cars USA would need me to authorize disassembly of the engine for further diagnosis of the engine at the cost of $869+ before they would decide how or if they could help. Potentially leaving me on the hook for all the reassembly/repair costs and potentially leaving me with a diagnosis that it needs even more then the $4900+ piston/ring job?

The car that this replaced was a Prius that we had gotten to 330k before the A/C compressor died with a replacement cost of nearly the book value of the car. Before that I had a v70 which had made it to 220k before I sold it. Super disappointed in this engine, in a car which we otherwise love.

What would be a smart path forward from this point?

When asked about how they came to the diagnosis of a piston/ring job it turns out that they came to this decision without doing any type of engine compression test. Is that normal? They seem very guarded and hush/hush about what is happening here.

Caveat Emptor...Buyer Beware...You bought a used car and should have had it inspected by a 3rd party shop either before or immediately after purchase. As if this issue were discovered, many states offer some sort of warranty for a car under 100K. I.E. 30 days.

At this point, you're stuck. You can reach out to Volvo Executives and appeal for aGood Will beyond what customer service offered. If you want, I can help you write something. But I don't really know any alternatives. Sounds like either you spend the $860 tear down and hope for the best. Or cut your loses and try to offload the vehicle.

Let me know if you want to try emailing executives for help.

 

The last time I tore down a Drive-e T5 to replace the pistons I found scratches on 2 of the cylinder walls. That engine was consuming oil and those scratches likely were the reason it was consuming oil. That car was CPO, so luckily for the customer, she got a new engine covered by her CPO warranty.

What caused those scratches on the cylinder walls? My guess is the broken spark plugs that so many early Drive-e engines experienced.

Maybe the Volvo dealer technicians could stick a boroscope through the spark plug holes to look inside your engine prior to teardown? I have been able to see scratches in cylinder walls with a boroscope and that is a lot less intrusive than pulling the head.

 

I'm just a shade tree mechanic, but I don't think that a few fine cylinder scratches would lead to horrible oil consumption. If there are many, heavy scratches and gouges, that's a different story. How many scratches are too many? How heavy is too heavy? Hard to quantify. Subjective.

Similarly, I'm not certain that a leak down or compression test would always detect a stuck ring. Sometimes, sure, but always?

The only way to know if a car has (or will have) and oil consumption problem is to measure oil consumption, and that takes good technique, time, and miles. Then, if you know you have the problem, the various troubleshooting techniques can be used to eliminate the easy things first.

 

There was a bulletin for pistons on Drive E cars with oil consumption. A compression test won't find anything, so a pre-purchase inspection wouldn't have found anything.

If we get a Drive E car with an oil consumption complaint, we first verify the problem. If we did the last oil change, we can calculate how much oil was burned since last service. If we did not, we need to start with full oil and monitor.

Once verified, if the car is part of the bulletin, we remove the head to start doing pistons. When the head is off, we inspect the cylinder bores. If they are good, we order up the pistons. If there is scoring, we order an engine.

 

There was a bulletin for rings on Drive E cars with oil consumption. A compression test won't find anything, so a pre-purchase inspection wouldn't have found anything.

If we get a Drive E car with an oil consumption complaint, we first verify the problem. If we did the last oil change, we can calculate how much oil was burned since last service. If we did not, we need to start with full oil and monitor.

Once verified, if the car is part of the bulletin, we remove the head to start doing rings. When the head is off, we inspect the cylinder bores. If they are good, we order up the rings. If there is scoring, we order an engine.

So who is on the hook for repair costs, since there is a known bulletin? Does Volvo shell out for the repair, since it's a manufacturer defect. Or is the OP stuck with the cost, because the problem happened outside the allotted warranty? Even though Volvo knows this problem can occur down the road.

 

The car is outside of warranty, a bulletin does not extend the warranty.

 

Bit surprised there was never a class action forcing a mandatory recall. As it seems this issue has been prevalent enough to warranty a bulletin. So at the very least, it isn't isolated.

Are the spark plugs breaking off and causing the damage? Or what's the root cause?

 

If people sued because of every problem there is a bulletin for, I would change careers to become a lawyer.

Since the bulletin is to replace pistons and rings, I assume the cause was something with them. But the bulletin does not specify.

 

Volvo issued a "Service Action" regarding affected spark plugs and my car got a free spark plugs replacement at Volvo Dealership

 

A few casual searches will highlight the fact that sticking rings and oil consumption complaints are not unique to Volvo. In fact, I saw a lot more chatter about it on various Audi and VW forums. Yet somehow this feels like a relatively recent phenomenon. It's almost like there was some sort of design trend that pushed the engineers to some combination of low-tension rings, groove geometries, bore finishes, or something that when combined with other factors like turbocharging and gas and oil quality leads to ring sticking. Unintended consequences and all that.

How do you say "Oops" in German or Swedish?

That said, I don't think it's realistic to expect manufacturers to provide lifetime warranties. As customers, we couldn't afford the costs that they'd pass along.

 

Those VW and Audi problems you speak of are many years ago . Why you see them on forums is because young kids have them now tuneing them .
A VOLVO engine that takes a dump at 60k is not a buyer beware or hey it has 60k on it what do you think is going to happen . If volvo is any kind of company they will fix these cars with 100,000 miles . A damn near 40,000 cars engine should last that long .

 

A VOLVO engine that takes a dump at 60k is not a buyer beware or hey it has 60k on it what do you think is going to happen .

Replacing piston rings is not "taking a dump". It is a repair, abeit an expensive one.

 

Consumer Reports published a list of the thirty car models with the highest number of oil consumption complaints. Volvo models occupy spots 28 and 29 on that list.

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/06/excessive-oil-consumption/index.htm

 

Consumer Reports : Yeah that article was from June 2015 , i would hope the spark plugs would last that long . And i would call B.S. if Volvo says its on you at 56K

 

If you get no where with any goodwill with Volvo and still are on the hook for $4900+, you would be better off finding a indy shop, pulling the engine and replace with a good used engine from ebay or car-part.com. Or worst case scenario, get a oil change and drive the thing until the engine seizes up from lack of oil and file an insurance claim for a new motor...

 

Volvo has been pretty good with goodwill for these, especially for original owners.

If you get a used one, make sure it isn't within the bulletin range.

 

Does anyone have access or know the bullitn range ?

 

The bulletin states that engines after SN 1501327 have been "modified from the engine factory".

I wonder what they changed, exactly.

 

Im guessing different rings maybe even pistons ?

 

So a good guess is if the car falls into the the earlier number engine range at some point the problem will pop up ?

 

I think all you can say is that the risk is greater. 1 in 100 chance? 1 in 10,000 chance? Volvo has the data, I'm sure, but they ain't sayin'.

 

Actions that might help avoid the issue . What do you think ?
Don't do 10,000 mile oil changes
Dont use the useless start/stop function
Dont use a A5 oil for more MPGs
Use A3 oil that has better wear qualities .
Use a good quality fuel treatment for cleaner combustion chamber to combat LSPI (low speed pre-ignition)

 

Change sparkplugs to the newer design.

 

UPDATE- Thank you for the many replies. I had an email notification of Dyno’s first reply but I thought that the thread had faded, since I have not received any other email notifications.

The car over the weekend right at 66001 miles asked for another quart of oil. Right at 785 miles since the last quart of Castrol Edge I added. This problem since the replacement of the oil trap(PCV) seems to be getting exponentially worse.

I agree with many of the posts that this would not have shown up in a pre-purchase inspection. It seems and Volvo seems to agree, that the only way to detect this problem is with time and an oil consumption test. I probably should have still gotten an inspection, but instead I put too much faith in the 2yr/24k service agreement/extended service warranty that the Cadillac/GMC dealer sold me. It hid a clause about excessive oil consumption at the very end of the contract just behind a clause about “shop towel disposal costs” and right before, not covering "rental car costs" outside of the service agreement dates. Not kidding, make sure that you fully read, these contracts. The true contract hides in the fine details of the exclusions; and when you read the words “ALL internal lubricated parts...”, in the body of the contract it truly means “SOME internal lubricated parts under VERY limited circumstances…”

I did open my own request for Goodwill through the VCUSA website last week and that resulted in my getting a phone call back from my local service advisor, saying I need to agree to the tear down for $869 and VCUSA will see what they can do at that time. I pointed out that at that point I would feel kind of cornered with a torn-down engine at their mercy.

The dealership seems very “flow-charted” in terms of how they are dealing with the symptoms of this, but they do not want to even loosely pre-explain the possible scenarios based on what they might find after a full tear down. Given 24 hours gestation time, they seemed very unwilling to even stick with the pistion/ring diagnosis of $4900.

It looks like there are at least three possible reasons why these engines are doing this:
The piston rings are not seating correctly.
The original spark plugs were falling apart.
The positive crankcase ventilation provided by the oil trap was not working correctly (the first scenario that the dealership seemed to take on according to the flow-charts).

For those of you with a mechanical bent, I wonder why a system is not in place that would be easily readable by an OBD code if you truly had a positive crankcase ventilation problem. This seems like to my very limited abilities, an easy thing to measure with a pressure sensor in the crankcase and with a little calculation, could easily set off a general check-engine light (something which I have still yet to see on my dashboard, I only get the add a quart message).

The other thing about positive crankcase ventilation is that you do not have to do a lot of reading on Volvo forums to realize that failures in positive crankcase ventilation lead to many premature deaths of Volvo engines. Why does Volvo not set a regular maintenance schedule for this item and does not even mention it in my Service and Maintenance Schedule booklet?

The other questionable thing about crankcase ventilation with this cars engine is that, with the tried and true “Dipstick method” for checking your oil, if the pressure was high and the PCV had failed, often times it would push the dipstick and the friction provided by the o-ring up out of the tube and to any shade tree mechanic this would be a sign that the PCV system had failed and needed to be replaced.

The lack of a dipstick on this car is truly annoying under these circumstances with the only indicators being either FULL or ADD A QUART. My understanding is that the dealer’s computers can read the oil level to a MM. Does anyone know of an inexpensive OBD reader that would let me see the exact level of the oil?

As a little more background info, my car did have the spark plug recall done at just past 40k according to my service advisor.

Thanks for the input everyone. I truly may have made a mistake with this car, but I am willing to share my journey in the transparent hope that it might help others. It might truly be the case with these recent Volvo’s that unless you buy a CPO that they should be avoided. But my hope would be that a car company, who wants to sell cars in the 40-80k dollar range, would realize that there is great value to those of us willing to assume the residual values on these vehicles after 2-3 years, so that they can upgrade/update the original customer to another new car.

 

UPDATE- Thank you for the many replies. I had an email notification of Dyno's first reply but I thought that the thread had faded, since I have not received any other email notifications.

The car over the weekend right at 66001 miles asked for another quart of oil. Right at 785 miles since the last quart of Castrol Edge I added. This problem since the replacement of the oil trap(PCV) seems to be getting exponentially worse.

I agree with many of the posts that this would not have shown up in a pre-purchase inspection. It seems and Volvo seems to agree, that the only way to detect this problem is with time and an oil consumption test. I probably should have still gotten an inspection, but instead I put too much faith in the 2yr/24k service agreement/extended service warranty that the Cadillac/GMC dealer sold me. It hid a clause about excessive oil consumption at the very end of the contract just behind a clause about "shop towel disposal costs" and right before, not covering "rental car costs" outside of the service agreement dates. Not kidding, make sure that you fully read, these contracts. The true contract hides in the fine details of the exclusions; and when you read the words "ALL internal lubricated parts...", in the body of the contract it truly means "SOME internal lubricated parts under VERY limited circumstances…"

I did open my own request for Goodwill through the VCUSA website last week and that resulted in my getting a phone call back from my local service advisor, saying I need to agree to the tear down for $869 and VCUSA will see what they can do at that time. I pointed out that at that point I would feel kind of cornered with a torn-down engine at their mercy.

The dealership seems very "flow-charted" in terms of how they are dealing with the symptoms of this, but they do not want to even loosely pre-explain the possible scenarios based on what they might find after a full tear down. Given 24 hours gestation time, they seemed very unwilling to even stick with the pistion/ring diagnosis of $4900.

It looks like there are at least three possible reasons why these engines are doing this:
The piston rings are not seating correctly.
The original spark plugs were falling apart.
The positive crankcase ventilation provided by the oil trap was not working correctly (the first scenario that the dealership seemed to take on according to the flow-charts).

For those of you with a mechanical bent, I wonder why a system is not in place that would be easily readable by an OBD code if you truly had a positive crankcase ventilation problem. This seems like to my very limited abilities, an easy thing to measure with a pressure sensor in the crankcase and with a little calculation, could easily set off a general check-engine light (something which I have still yet to see on my dashboard, I only get the add a quart message).

The other thing about positive crankcase ventilation is that you do not have to do a lot of reading on Volvo forums to realize that failures in positive crankcase ventilation lead to many premature deaths of Volvo engines. Why does Volvo not set a regular maintenance schedule for this item and does not even mention it in my Service and Maintenance Schedule booklet?

The other questionable thing about crankcase ventilation with this cars engine is that, with the tried and true "Dipstick method" for checking your oil, if the pressure was high and the PCV had failed, often times it would push the dipstick and the friction provided by the o-ring up out of the tube and to any shade tree mechanic this would be a sign that the PCV system had failed and needed to be replaced.

The lack of a dipstick on this car is truly annoying under these circumstances with the only indicators being either FULL or ADD A QUART. My understanding is that the dealer's computers can read the oil level to a MM. Does anyone know of an inexpensive OBD reader that would let me see the exact level of the oil?

As a little more background info, my car did have the spark plug recall done at just past 40k according to my service advisor.

Thanks for the input everyone. I truly may have made a mistake with this car, but I am willing to share my journey in the transparent hope that it might help others. It might truly be the case with these recent Volvo's that unless you buy a CPO that they should be avoided. But my hope would be that a car company, who wants to sell cars in the 40-80k dollar range, would realize that there is great value to those of us willing to assume the residual values on these vehicles after 2-3 years, so that they can upgrade/update the original customer to another new car.

Thanks for coming back. A few things I want to point out since I am currently going through the exact same thing.

1. You're absolutely right that a pre-purchase inspection would not have found this. There should be a sticky on this forum called "Post here if your 2.0T Drive-E engine needed pistons/rings" so that potential used Volvo owners can see that this is a real problem with the 2015.5 and 2016 engines up to serial number 1501327 and that you are rolling the dice with a car with one of those engines.

2. Don't roll over on the warranty. You are correct that your warranty does not cover oil consumption, but the diagnosis is not oil consumption, the diagnosis is bad pistons/rings (or it will be after the teardown). Oil consumption is a SYMPTOM of bad pistons/rings. This is the route that I plan on taking if/when the warranty company tries not to cover my eventual repair. The only difference is that I specifically bought the warranty from a Volvo dealership with the Volvo name on it in hopes that Volvo will go to bat for me with the warranty folks.

3. I thought the lack of a dipstick was annoying too, but after I went through 8 quarts of oil over the summer, I found it super convenient not to have to check the oil, but for the car to tell me when it was low.

4. There is no inexpensive obd reader that will check the oil level. The dealership can get that down to the mm with their Volvo VIDA DICE diagnostic tool. You can buy one of those and set the software up on a laptop, however.
EDIT: At the time I posted this, there was no way to get oil readings from our computer cheaply. That is not the case anymore. Any cheap bluetooth OBD2 elm tool hooked up to the Car Scanner app can get the oil level readings for a Drive-E car.

5. Don't overthink the PCV angle. It's the pistons/rings.

To the folks saying that the oil level reader in the instrument cluster will tell you the actual oil level, I thought the same thing, but based on my oil consumption experience and checking that readout every time I got in the car from full to add-oil min, it only shows some levels. It will show over-max, max, 3/4, but then it will jump to below-min, and add-oil min. It will never show 1/2, 1/4, or min. If anyone claims that their car told them their oil was at min, 1/4, or 1/2 according to that readout, ask them for a picture. So far, I've never seen a photo showing that the oil level readout will do that. Hopefully they do a computer update someday that will allow it.

 

Thanks for updating us. So your problem did not show up till after the new spark plugs . So it can be ruled out that a broken spark plug scratched the cylinder . To sum it up its just a bad engine and thousands of people have them . Im really thinking of selling mine and i have only had it 6 weeks . Just turned 29,000 . Shame on me for not searching the web for weeks before purchase . I had the general opinion Volvo was a quality company with a good product .I WAS WRONG .

 

I do not know whether or not the problem was apparent before the spark plug recall or not. It has only slowly become apparent to me since I bought the car at 56k. I can not rule out the spark plug explanation at this point. I still have hope that I can reach some type of agreement over the repair of this car with Volvo. I understand that the warranty expired 16k miles ago and am willing to step forward and assist with the repairs, but to be left hanging in the wind on whether a $5000 solution will even fix the problem for the long term is unacceptable.

 

Regarding a "dipstick reader", I can read the oil level on my dipstick-less 2016 V60 by putting the ignition in Mode 2 (?) and scrolling through the instrumet panel screen until "Oil Level" is shown. Must be done BEFORE you start the car. Consult the owner's guide that is available through the infotainment screen.

Good luck to you.

Interestingly, I was listening to a radio interview of one of the founders a "tech" company (LinkedIn). Here is the "wisdom" he shared...
Do NOT listen to your first wave of customers. Doing so will slow you down. Focus on capturing new customers, even at the expense of old ones.
Do NOT take extra time to make sure a product is good before it goes out the door. Doing so will slow you down. Make adjustments after the product has launched.
Development speed trumps quality.
Do NOT be afraid to put out a product that embarrasses you or your company. See the point above.

Sheesh. That explains a lot.

 

Funny enough, I had to ask my Volvo Dealership, how the hell do I check oil levels. Simply depress and hold down the Start / Stop button for a few seconds, without placing your foot on the brake. The car will then allow you to check oil levels via the controls found upon the steering wheel.

 

In reality i guess the electronic dip stick would be fine if Volvo could figure out how to make a decent engine .
The old t5 5 cylinder drank oil the new 4 cylinder drinks oil . So i have a great idea ! Lets take the dipstick out . Why not do away with the trunk and put a oil tank back there .

 

ahhhhh I am really concerned about my V60 after reading everything

First, THANK YOU (Obxcnc)!!!! I cannot imagine how hard and frustrating it is to be in your shoes with this potential $5k bill to fix your car. MOrevoer, I appreciate the fact you do not speculate about everything and you stick to what is known in your situation...it helps a lot to stay focus on the issue.
Please keep us updated about this

Then, as Kjmaack, I would have known about this, I would have buy the T6 without thinking twice. 2 years ago, there was not so much about this issue I could find here (did not check the whole forum for sure)

Finally, since I have to stick with a T5 for personal reasons, I will ask the dealer to do the 3yr/30k miles control and then I will change the spark plugs (every 30k miles will be a to do things) and I will investigate more about this "cranckcase ventilation" and find a way to monitor

THANK you all for the way to read oil level. I have this "oil" option but I could never access to it. Now, I know why. Love this forum.