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My otherwise ace V70 has just repaid my loyalty by semi shitting it's pants. The tailgate power close door thingy stopped working a couple of weeks ago when the whole tailgate lost all power (lights, wiper, demister, auto close the lot). I drove about 500 miles and it all came back to life except the power close/open whatsit.
Volvo are telling me £300 to hum and haw (AKA 'diagnosis' - now paid) and another £1k to fix.
They say they're really really sure it'll fix it (double guaranteed) though I'm just a bit concerned it'll turn out to be bad wiring and/or a ****y earth.
Any suggestions please? Ta.
Assuming this car is ancient and/or high mileage, have you not got an independent garage you can go to instead of a Main Stealer?
I had a similar problem on a golf. After a bit of investigation it turned out to be a broken wire in the wiring harness between the tail gate and the body of the car. On the Golf its in a little rubber sock. Lights kicked on and off when moving the sock. Worth a bit of poking about before firing a load of cash at a garage
Wiring to tailgate is a common problem on the V70, I soldered ours, around 6 wires were broken clean through. Fairly easy DIY with a gas soldering iron.
Independent auto electrician would be my choice.
Wiring is a PITA and it is most likely a break in the harness where it goes from the car body to the tailgate.
Remember spending a very cold day around this time of year with both doors of my 306 splicing in wires to the door looms back when I was a student. Never again.
Do you have a tow bar? Stick a cheap light board to the back until you can someone to look at it for you.
I thought loom where it flexes but they've had it for a couple of hours poking around and insist it's the power lift motor thingumybob. No towbar but that doesn't matter as everything sprang back to life except the uppy downy jobbie.
It's a 2013 with 65k on it and I was planning on keeping it for another couple of years.
I've just been out and given the flexi pipe bit a good pulling around and it doesn't affect anything that is working and doesn't make the power jobbie spring into life...
surely you must be able to replace the motor lift system for good old gas struts?
It's got gas sluts as well bbbbbutt, but, lift it? Like manually? <shudders>
Whereabouts are you. Sure there’s someone on here who can help
Cambs
Where do you get gas sluts? Asking for a friend
I'd definitely be taking that apart for a quick look first myself. Does sound as though something has been rubbing on a metal panel when moving over time and has shorted out or an earth has gone dry.
The motor for the boot will be drawing the most power so it may point to an earth issue.
Although I can understand why you dont want to go back to having to manually operate a tailgate I'd be more worried about the lack of lights reoccurring as you might get rear ended at high speed.
Other than wiring the other cause could be water entry shorting it all out and a relay for the motor could be knackered now. Does your rear wash wipe still spray? Had a leaky rear wash wipe on an old peugeot that used to keep knackering the wiper motor relay in the boot lid and the freelander has random rear wiper action (even with the keys out) when it's been raining and water gets in somewhere so I have to pull the fuse to stop it.
That's surely fixable for a lot less than £1k....
VW wanted to write off or Touran when boot strut mounting came undone. I fixed it with £1 rivnut after asking on here....
(Fellow 2013 V70 D3 /90k owner here, our one just popped a warning lamp for emissions...)
Check this guy out - he has lots of wiring and useful V70 / XC70 videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/volvosweden
Yep the wash wipe, wipes and washes. Luckily Sven foresaw the issue and the rear lights and brake lights are separated i.e. on the bodywork not on the tailgate and haven't stopped working. I really don't fancy being rear ended in the dark...
Boblo, find a fish, hold it by the tail and slap repeatedly on each cheek.
You are the guy who rebuilt a desalination plant on a yacht in mid Atlantic with less kit than the guys had on Apollo 13.
Roll up your sleeves and pull off the grommet and find the breaks in the wires betwixt tailgate and body. You’ve clearly been enjoying the up and downy function too much
Stronger gas struts.
Don't know how you'll shut it, but opening will just be a button press and having to avoid being chinned by the boot as it's released.
These things don't have gas struts.
They have motor and spring hidden in rear roof area.
One of those volvosweden videos shows how to access and all the wiring.
A couple of hours with voltmeter and new wires in hand and I bet you're good to go.
Well time for the 'it's fixed' update...
I put it into the dealer at the end of Dec'18 to diagnose the fault. They decided it was the motor/pump unit that drives the ups and downs of the tailgate. 'How certain?' I asked. '100%' they said...
Fast forward to yesterday. It turns out it was the connectors between the main loom and the tailgate loom (£300 of parts apparently - I sh1t you not).
After a lot of arm twisting, haggling and reminders of the fateful 100% declaration, I'm a total of £600 quid lighter including the original mis diagnosis but have a fully functioning rear door. No more manual closures for me or unwanted rear ending... 🙂
Turns out I've paid about the same as a decent indy. Not sure it's been a premium experience but at least it's fixed...
Your a mechanic, employed. Its 2pm on a Friday. How much effort are they going to put into pulling off trim and testing wires looking for an intermittent fault when the customer has been quoted £300 to plug it into the fancy computer and 90 minutes of labour, when they can just tell the boss its Part Y, the pesky customer sods off and will either never return, or will pony up £1000 next week, at which point if it does turn out to be a wiring issue, well they'll find out after fitting a new motor when its booked in for a 6 hour job, and you'll probably never know if they have time to sort it before you come back. Plus of course no doubt there is a sales target to meet for flogging expensive new parts to customers, and I'm sure most garage bosses don't want their mechanics fiddlefarting about trying to save the customer a few hundred quid rather than move to the next motor.
Yeh, I'm cynical 🙂
That was my concern hence the 'how certain' question. I wasn't prepared to go in wallet open for them to help themselves until a fix was miraculously found. I dunno if this can ever be called good value but the job started at £1500 and I ended up paying £600.
I'm satisfied with that, happy would be stretching things a bit...
You've a right to be..
Our V70 threw a fault code, Vida/dice showed one immediately followed by another. Volvo forums said 'second pressure sensor on intercooler'.
Garage ignored. Garage cleaned turbo and EGR. Bill for £300.
Fault code back on within a week.
Your's truly reached down and replaced the pressure sensor on intercooler (£32).
Garage has to be fair refunded half the cost of clean.
And I've a clean turbo and EGR.
It's not an easy or accurate game this fixing cars thing.
This is the problem with having garages trace faults. They can be 50% certain it's X that's failed and needs replacing, so they try that. They haven't got the time to invest in properly tracing it unless you pay them tons of money.
And this is precisely why I always seem to end up fixing our cars myself. My v50 has recently had a new EGR valve, fuse board out for a full terminal clean, and a new alternator after the old one decided to try welding. The only trips to a garage are for the MOT or new tyres.