GM is one thing, not enough Volvo owners to make the aforementioned millions for the lawyers

 

Well... I like to think it's about solving the problem vs. making millions for the legal network. You'd have to read up on the GM deal. A different law firm handled that and I can't speak to what the subtle differences may have been. I believe key to both being it's alleged both knew about the problem but chose to ignore it. And that's the stuff that gets decided in court. However larger a target might be, a problems a problem... and money wise, would you believe that there's a lady suiing Kraft for $5 million over the time it takes her to microwave her macaroni???? Of course she'll lose but... just saying.

 

When I bought my 2014 S60 T5 AWD with 70k miles, the car was burning upwards of a quart in 2000-2500 miles. I started changing the oil every 2500 miles with 5w40. I've also done the LiquiMoly engine flush 3 times, and replaced the PCV oil separator box. Now at just shy of 85000 miles, and 1000 miles from the last oil change, the oil level has only dropped about 200ml. And that is with 800 miles of high speed driving, which tends to burn more oil.

So I believe you can see improvement just from cleaning the engine.

 

When I bought my 2014 S60 T5 AWD with 70k miles, the car was burning upwards of a quart in 2000-2500 miles. I started changing the oil every 2500 miles with 5w40. I've also done the LiquiMoly engine flush 3 times, and replaced the PCV oil separator box. Now at just shy of 85000 miles, and 1000 miles from the last oil change, the oil level has only dropped about 200ml. And that is with 800 miles of high speed driving, which tends to burn more oil.

So I believe you can see improvement just from cleaning the engine.

Good to know, thank you! PCV Oil Separator Box... ok, hadn't done that but I'll get to that directly. What was your mileage spread on the LiquiMoly flush? Have you been doing a Liqui flush every 2,500 miles w/ oil change? And you've done it 3x? Will you now go back to your regular intervals? Mine [on all of our vehicles] have been every 5,000 miles albeit the synthetic industries say 10k or thereabouts. This is great information, thank you! I'm interested in solving the problem... without having to take the engine apart!

 

The VEA engines launched with lower pressure piston rings as a way to reduce friction and lower fuel consumption. The general rule is that doing so risks higher blowby and higher oil consumption. I'm not sure if the VEA T5 engines are the only ones showing high oil consumption issues or if it's across the whole VEA engine range. Or just an issue of the design or manufacture of the ones used for the T5. What I've seen before is that once an engine starts to high higher oil consumption or more oil passing past the rings is that oil and carbon build up then makes the ring stickier and the problem then exacerbates. The LiquiMoly flush may be removing this carbon and oil build up so resolving that part of the later problem. Interesting to see if AM Reed's engine now settles down as this tends to point to less of a piston ring problem and more of an oil itself issue given the tendency to coke up the rings. Are you using Volvo's recommended oil from Castrol or another type?

 

One mechanic told me that all of the newer cars are seeing increased oil consumption due to this effort to increase fuel mileage... news to me. Oil wise, our dealer was using Pennzoil Super Platinum or some such high end Pennzoil product so that's what I used for our oil changes. They later changed back to Castrol GTX... I'm guessing they got a deal on the Pennzoil and when that deal ended, the went back to Castrol. Top shelf either way... I always use Mann oil filters on our Volvo, Benz and Audi.

 

Some useful info here. Piston rings were modified from 2016 with larger oil drain holes on the oil ring of the piston and as a countermeasure. Sticking to the recommended oil spec and supplier is a good idea too (approved oil additive and detergent packages). The lower pressure piston rings weren't the cause in the end.

So all 2013-2016 VEA engines seem to be at risk of this clogging of the oil drain hole on the oil scraper ring, leads to carbon build up and as above the sticky piston ring situation then follows and oil consumption then gets worse and worse.

Given AM Reed's post about Liquimoly it maybe that a way to avoid needing to change the piston rings for the later design is regular oil flushes and I'd recommend more frequent oil changes too plus sticking to Volvo's recommended and approved Castrol oil too.

 

Note that we're talking about the B5452T12 five cylinder T5 ennd not the VEA 4 cylinder.

I've been using Castrol Edge 5w40 euro car formula for the last few oil changes. This provides arguably better protection for the engine at the expense of a slight reduction in fuel economy from the Volvo specified 5w30.
The car seems to run very well and the oil use keeps improving so I plan to keep up the short oil change interval for now. I may lengthen it in the future but I've never really gone longer than 4k miles on any car I've owned, even with synthetic oil. Oil is comparatively cheaper than a new engine.

 

Just a point of clarification, both of these cases are not VEA engines.

 

Did you buy the car new or CPO? Volvo tends to be really good about taking care of original and CPO owners on this topic. IMO... it also makes the class action a bigger challenge since so many of the cars that are affected and not fixed by Volvo were bought used and generally with "as is" or very limited warranties. Buying a car with a known tendency to burn oil and then being surprised it burns oil is a little uphill battle. I feel like the surprised Pikachu meme would be a valid defense for Volvo here.

 

We've had the car since new and it still looks like new. I mentioned our oil issues + the class action to the Volvo service writer and they'd weren't familiar with any of it. Pretty normal for this shop.

 

We own a 2015.5 Volvo S60 T5 AWD Platinum and, at 72,000 miles I've been wondering where the oils going. I changed the oil & filter every 5,000 miles and, for the first 50,000 miles, that was the dance between me and the local dealer... they changed the oil every 10,000 miles (per service warranty) but I was changing every 5k so then at 15, 25, 35, 45, 55k and so on. Now we're at 73k and it's using 1 qt+ every 1,000 miles. One of the bloggers here recommended doing an engine flush using Liqui Moly Proline and switching to their Liqui 5 - 40w which I've just had done. 🙏🖖 (I think that last emoji is a fingers-crossed). Anyway, if this solves the problem or improves things, I'm all in. But per the firm handling the Class Action suit I'll be documenting every move. All I want out of this is, if it's a known problem, is for my engine to be repaired... this vs. being the recipient of a settlement wherein we each get $50 for our trouble... and the lawyers walk away w/ millions. For those following here's the link:

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Car%20Stuff/Volvo/Class%20action%20re%20oil%20consumption/buchanan-et-al-v-volvo-car-usa-llc-et-al.pdf

Something similar was just settled with GM re certain engines and folks are getting their oil rings replaced. It's not clear to me if this is the result of an engineering exercise wherein they were hoping for better mileage and/or some bean counter thought he'd save the company some money. Either way, sorry to say... it's not working out.

Did you do the step where you pour the Berryman B-12 in through the spark plug holes and let it sit? IIRC from other threads, that in conjunction with what you did could fix the oil issue.
So far my V60 seems to use no oil whatsoever according to the in-car display. If it starts I'll be doing the treatment for sure.

 

We did not but the thought occurred to me that something ought to be poured from the top down and simply left alone for... what, 48 hrs? The shop I'm using [ELP] primarily works on exotics so they know what they're doing and I didn't want to be too much of a busybody. Fortunately our Volvo comes w/ a dipstick! I can't imagine having it any other way. In fact, I wasn't aware of cars depending entirely on their idiot lights until a lady friend w/ a BMW was over and I was giving her car a quick once over (she never does). I couldn't find the dip stick! I had to google it, only to learn that there wasn't one! Felt pretty stupid after that. But the Volvo low oil light doesn't even come on at 2 qts low... and what, it holds 5.5 or something like that? Thanks for the suggestion... I'll pass it along to the team at ELP for perhaps the next oil change.

 

I absolutely HATE "normalized" gauges of all kinds. I want to know what is really going on. My BMW had a temperature gauge like that, it would read dead still in the center until the car had one more degree to go to be overheated and then slam over to the red with no warning.
Does anyone know how much oil can go missing before the readout starts to drop?

 

It drops, or triggers a warning when there is no longer enough and you need to add some - presumably something that happens some time before there is really not enough

 

The problem with the electronics might fail too argument is you're still stuck with the maybe 1% of people who checked their oil. I'll wager more engines are saved by an electronic check than those saved with a dipstick. Yes, both would be better... but I'd be quite skeptical to see the dollar amount pan out to anything close to practical, and I'm no bean counter.

 

Re: checking oil. We have 4 vehicles in our fleet at work, and I can tell you that unless an idiot light comes on, the hoods on those vehicles do not get opened between scheduled maintenance intervals.

 

If 1% of Volvo owners check the oil on the dipstick, I bet 0.5% of them at best go through the rigamarole of getting the oil level readout up on the display. It only works in certain conditions, you can't just check it whenever you want to. You have to have the car sitting for X amount of time and hit start without your foot on the brake or you can't even get into it.
My old BMW had a dipstick and a low oil level warning light. In theory that was a good idea, but in fine BMW fashion the sender was wonky and the light went on and off at random times
The 911 has the best one of all, you can see the level from inside the car right next to how much gas you have

Probably drove the dealers nuts though, the way the dry-sump engine worked the gauge is only accurate at idle when hot.

 

If 1% of Volvo owners check the oil on the dipstick, I bet 0.5% of them at best go through the rigamarole of getting the oil level readout up on the display. It only works in certain conditions, you can't just check it whenever you want to. You have to have the car sitting for X amount of time and hit start without your foot on the brake or you can't even get into it.
My old BMW had a dipstick and a low oil level warning light. In theory that was a good idea, but in fine BMW fashion the sender was wonky and the light went on and off at random times
The 911 has the best one of all, you can see the level from inside the car right next to how much gas you have

Probably drove the dealers nuts though, the way the dry-sump engine worked the gauge is only accurate at idle when hot.

I check it almost 100% of the time. A handful of short drives where I didn’t check it on the display. I’m that OCD. However… when this happens multiple times…

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I lose a little faith in the electronic display being the sole way to check the oil. It’s extremely accurate though. When I’ve changed the oil on the 2017, I’ve added 6.1 quarts and checked the display. It is obvious that it’s immediately accurate and displayed a notch lower than full. Added a tiny bit more and it showed full.


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I’d argue that the Volvo system, which not only has the level check you can look at if you wish, but also pops up a very stern impossible to miss warning in your face when it’s time to add a quart, is ideal for the average non-car enthusiast driver.

 

I actually did not realize it would do that. From various threads it seems like the car has to be about on the last little bit of oil to show any warning.

 

We own a 2015.5 Volvo S60 T5 AWD Platinum and, at 72,000 miles I've been wondering where the oils going. I changed the oil & filter every 5,000 miles and, for the first 50,000 miles, that was the dance between me and the local dealer... they changed the oil every 10,000 miles (per service warranty) but I was changing every 5k so then at 15, 25, 35, 45, 55k and so on. Now we're at 73k and it's using 1 qt+ every 1,000 miles. One of the bloggers here recommended doing an engine flush using Liqui Moly Proline and switching to their Liqui 5 - 40w which I've just had done. 🙏🖖 (I think that last emoji is a fingers-crossed). Anyway, if this solves the problem or improves things, I'm all in. But per the firm handling the Class Action suit I'll be documenting every move. All I want out of this is, if it's a known problem, is for my engine to be repaired... this vs. being the recipient of a settlement wherein we each get $50 for our trouble... and the lawyers walk away w/ millions. For those following here's the link:

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Car%20Stuff/Volvo/Class%20action%20re%20oil%20consumption/buchanan-et-al-v-volvo-car-usa-llc-et-al.pdf

Something similar was just settled with GM re certain engines and folks are getting their oil rings replaced. It's not clear to me if this is the result of an engineering exercise wherein they were hoping for better mileage and/or some bean counter thought he'd save the company some money. Either way, sorry to say... it's not working out.

Reach out to the Dealer GM of the Purchasing Volvo Dealership (if same as servicing). Or the Servicing Dealership (VOLVO) if you have an established relationship. Ask that the dealer advocate to Volvo on your behalf for a good will repair.

If that gets you nowhere, search on here for my threads to corporate contacts. Write a polite note that you're the original owner, attaching proof of the oil consumption, etc etc. If you're a multiple Volvo household or owned prior dealer purchased Volvos, include that in letter. Most of all, mention you bought this vehicle from a Volvo Dealer....If it's dealer serviced for the entirety of its life, Volvo is good about covering the issue.

I've helped people with this a billion times successfully....Just follow that advice and you should be ok. Got too much on my plate at the moment to jump in and assist people right now.

@DFrantz is right. Goodwill goes a long way, and Volvo usually takes care of the original owners that have consistently serviced their car at Volvo. Now if you've jumped ship to an independent mechanic, that's where things get sloppy.

 

@DFrantz is right. Goodwill goes a long way, and Volvo usually takes care of the original owners that have consistently serviced their car at Volvo. Now if you've jumped ship to an independent mechanic, that's where things get sloppy.

Thus the reason my CPO V60 gets every service at the dealer. I plan to leave them no excuses if the thing blows up.

 

And when you get that "low oil pressure" warning in many cases the damage is already done.

The P2R had both a dipstick and a low oil warning when you were down a quart - that seemed to work well though to be honest I have no issue with Volvo's current implementation either.

 

Yeah, weird because I think(?) the P3 5 cylinder does have a sensor that monitors the oil level in the sump. But it's not associated with any warning alarms. I would have to plug the car into VIDA live data to verify though.

 

I don’t mind replacing the cup holder rubber from time to time, but I really object to the engineers making it such a tedious time consuming job involving taking half the interior apart in my 2015, compared to the ‘11 (a bit fiddly) or better yet my ‘09 c70 - pops out in a second.

 

Another dumb engineering decision to make a wearable part hard to access.....And reinventing the wheel to take a design that worked before (easily replaced cup holder) and turn into a disaster.

 

We're really turning this into whining about a rubber cup holder insert? It isn't just P3. P2 and P1 used that as well.

Sure, the 850 and S70 didn't use it. So buy one of those. See how you like the constant dash noise from broken mounts as compared to some worn or broken rubber for a cup holder insert.

Let me know when you find a car is so flawlessly designed it never breaks and no parts ever wear out.

 

I remember a time when Volvos had no cup holders. None.

 

Hard to access is relative. A DIYer might have trouble with it but it really isn't that bad. And engineers don't care about how hard something is to replace for a DIYer. It's replaceable and available. That's more than some manufacturers do.

Horrible engineering decision
Screwing everyone
Disaster

You're being pretty dramatic over a cup holder insert.

When Volvo wants $350 to change a cupholder rubber grommet, I call that poor engineering and excessive.

Volvo clearly realized that was a design flaw after few years because no vehicles use a rubber grommet.

 

Hard to access is relative. A DIYer might have trouble with it but it really isn't that bad. And engineers don't care about how hard something is to replace for a DIYer. It's replaceable and available. That's more than some manufacturers do.

Horrible engineering decision
Screwing everyone
Disaster

You're being pretty dramatic over a cup holder insert.

 

Okay, let me know when you find a car that never has a single part break or wear out. Or if you find a car that has every single part readily accessible so that any replacement of any component takes a half hour or less.

 

I mean, I can do the paperwork for a new one in 1/2 hour if it's a competition. That can count as a replacement at any cost.

 

I’ve always been concerned about the positioning of the roof buttons on the c70 (right in front of cup holder). Fortunately they do seem to be coffee proof.

I’ll agree that “disaster” is serious exaggeration, but this is a part that should be easy to remove, clean and replace… and it was in 2009…

 

I’ve always been concerned about the positioning of the roof buttons on the c70 (right in front of cup holder). Fortunately they do seem to be coffee proof.

How about when you drive in the rain it seems the drip of the windscreen goes right on the door window controls! Horrible planning.

 

I think I only had one customer ever even ask about replacing the rubber insert in any Volvo. Clearly not that bothersome to most.

 

Every p3 I've gotten as a loaner, and that's pretty much all my dealer has on hand, had the rubber grommet crumbling to pieces.

When told 2 hrs of labor by service advisor, I'm sure most people balk and say forget it.

The deteriorated rubber grommet doesn't affect operability of the car, so people live with it. Just might have a few drinks tip and spill.

 

I see a future class action here - hold on!

 

Beverag-itis. Characterized by Pain and suffering from tipped beverages and the need to be recompensed the cost of napkins used to clean up the spills.

 

I bought my P3 over a year ago and the same day I bought the new rubber for the cup holders... still haven't cared enough to pull it to replace, and I got a whole new center stack surround too (since mine was pealing)... speaking off... many of the old center stacks I see have the metal bublbing up! What's with theses cars need work as they get old? I expect machines to be like new forever!

 

I've had at least a 15-18 loaners over the years (all p3s) and never once saw the center stack bubbling. However, I did see all the cupholders in various states of decay. You're comparing a design flaw (or poor choice in materials) to an issue most likely related to parking in direct sunlight. Yes, if you live in a Texas, Arizona, Death Valley, etc and park outside in 110 degree weather, center consoles bubble and crack. I've seen this happen when I lived in Texas.

Unfortunately for the cupholder issue, Swedish engineers were shortsighted in changing from a replaceable cupholder to one that isn't easily swapped.

 

Yep, bought my xc60 coming up a year ago, cup holder grommet coming up 51 weeks ago, forgot to do it when I transplanted the NAV headunit from my S60, and when I installed my CarPlay unit… planning to swap out for the pretty gearshift, replace grommett, maybe install cup holder light, relocate CarPlay box and replace center vents all in one go one of these days