Should have stayed quiet - V70 issue......

[Roger Woods]

My old 05 V70 has been going really well and I have done a fair few miles recently BUT...... on Friday evening going home from work and only 3 miles from home it came up and said 'Engine requires services' Odd I thought as it was serviced 6 weeks back and then it went into a semi 'limp home mode' and would not go over 35 MPH?. Got home and turned it off and it seemed to re-set itself and has been fine over the 20 odd miles I have done since, its booked it to my normal chap to plug it in tomorrow but all very odd, its been such a good wagon and has never even farted before, I hope its not much, sods law just as I bought a caravan ..............

Any ideas people?

[S2Andy]

Mine did this a year or two ago returning from a service. (2006 D5).Turned out to be the throttle body? immediately after the air filter. £350 fix. Bolted straight on and problem never reappeared. Apparently need periodic cleaning.

[Roger Woods]

Thanks Andy, to be honest I don't expect it to be much as the old girl does seem to be rather tough and I do ask a lot of her of late!

[Super Slo Mo]

Was the fuel level low?

The fuel tank has two chambers, that are linked by a pump. If this pump fails, you can effectively run out of fuel despite showing a quarter of a tank or so. Leaving the vehicle parked for a while seems to allow more fuel to 'syphon' over from the second chamber, and the vehicle then behaves normally.

However, in my experience the vehicle doesn't usually go into limp mode, it just shuts down, although on one occasion mine did actually allow me to limp off the motorway, where I found a fuel station and re-filled the tank.
The other two occasions it happened the engine cut out and wouldn't re-start.

[Roger Woods]

I had topped the car up to full about 50 miles before.......

[morgrp]

Is the idle all over the place when it plays up?

[JumboBeef]

S2Andy said:

Mine did this a year or two ago returning from a service. (2006 D5).Turned out to be the throttle body? immediately after the air filter. £350 fix. Bolted straight on and problem never reappeared. Apparently need periodic cleaning.

Depending on what is wrong, a clean rather than replace can fix this. My old C70 did this twice in the time I had it, 50,000 miles apart. Takes about an hour (on a C70) and costs nothing apart from a aerosol cleaner, although I had more than one garage try to sell me a new throttle body at hundreds of pounds.

Try cleaning it first, if that doesnt fix it you've lost nothing apart from a hour or so.

[Roger Woods]

Update - I went to my Volvo chap and he could not see anything so cleared down the error codes that had remained after a recent flat battery and said keep an eye on it, I have done about 500 miles since and nothing, not even a blip?

All very odd