XC90 AWD Repair
 

Hi All

My wife is still adamant that she wants an XC90. I have always regarded it as a great car, but now I'm just not so sure.

Not just the concerns on this forum, but it was second bottom for reliability in the recent Which Car report, only better than a disco, how bad is that?

The C30 won it's class and the S60 was second in it's class. Now that's more like the Volvo of my experience.

My wife will get her way (whose wife doesn't), so can anyone tell me a ball park figure for replacing the dreaded bevel gear if the AWD doesn't work.

Thanks

Please, take, with a pinch of salt, what you have read on this forum.

Yes, one or two my suspect that they are having/had a problem, with the AWD, but they are only a few.

From my point, I have owned two XC90's, covered about 80.000 miles with them, been as far North (Sweden), knocking on the door of Lapland, East, as far as Vienna, South as far as the Med and generally, driving, around the North of Scotland, without any problems. (Off road, at every location)

Wheel bearings, track rod's, the odd, door lock, were replaced, but this was on the earlier models, nothing, ever to do with the AWD.

Locally, there is a lady, who has one of the very first XC90's, that came into the UK, who tows a two X horse trailer and goes around all the events in Scotland.
Speaking, to her about a month ago, she told me, that she has never been stuck at any of the venues, that she has visited.

The XC90, is a good car to drive, lots of space, but I do not require, the two extra seats.
That is why, I now have an XC60.

tem.

I've been looking to see specialist prices for repairing the bevel gear, given that if there is a big problem with a component specialists spring up to take advantage of the business. But here is the problem I have with the compaint about the second generation AWD. I can't find any, and I would expect to given the impression some people give of thousands of bevel gears failing. 7 dealers have said that they have only had one failure of all the cars they have sold, which I would guess is around 1 in 2,100 cars.

To have a main dealer repace the whole box costs about £1500 I think.

If you are really worried you could always take out an insurance policy to give you peace of mind. I did take one out at first but even the worst car like the one you mentioned is more likely not to go wrong than it is. Otherwise the insurance companies wouldn't insure them. We live in a very negative orientated society these days. I'd still be very tempted to buy from the manufacturer you mentioned because of it's capabilities.

Remember you can always replace a bevel gear, but you can't replace a family member and you will be getting the best accident protection of any manufacturer.

All the best.

Roy

Rear wheel drive reinstatement
 

Main dealer estimate for bevel gear replacement £1500.
Will let you know actual cost end next week.
Cost of Warranty Direct cover for my XC 90 - £380 per annum.
Warranty Direct will send their engineer to see stripped down car in Main delears workshop before agreeing the diagnosis and repair.
Will keep you informed of outcome.

As has been said many times before on this forum, the AWD system, as designed by Haldex - to include rear coupling and front bevel gear - is pretty much bullet proof.

What I'd still like to be confirmed is who designed the splined sleeve that essentially connects the transmission to the AWD system? Volvo or Haldex?

It's this sleeve that's the weak link and I would suggest the vast majority of any AWD 'failure' is attributed to this - NOT any failure of the bevel gear. When dealers replace the bevel gear its because they cannot release the sleeve from the bevel housing, hence asserting that you need a whole new bevel gear. (Do they all have the correct Volvo puller tool I wonder?).

Can anyone post a photo of a failed bevel gear from an XC90?

I wondering how it fails and how easy it is to replace just the gears. The transmission has six bevel gears by the way.

Roy

Hello all - this is correct - I unfortunately did have the problem (at 72k ish miles) - but even outside of the warranty period I managed to negotiate a 70/30 split in my favour of the repair cost with the warranty rep at the Dealer because I insisted this was not an expense I expected to be incurring on a car 3 1/2 years old with only 72k miles on it. The worst case without the discount included the bevel gear replacement which if I recall was in the region of £1300 - £1500. But if they could seperate the spline it would be a lot lot less. My invoice shows they had to heat the sleeve up to remove it - the total cost to me came to £154. The breakdown of the bill shows the sleeve at £85 before discount + other bits.
The sympton I experienced was front wheelspin (and horrendous torque steer) in the damp or wet especially accellerating out of junctions or exiting roundabouts.
Mine is an 05 MY - and yes I've had a few problems - some of them have been common to others on this forum and the warranty has picked them all up - but it's the best car I've ever had and smiles per mile I'd be hard pushed to beat it.
Mines just had it's 96k service - it's sat on the drive with the Average fuel trip reading 40.3 after mostly motorway work this week.
The best thing is with this forum - you know what to look out for and what questions to ask when you're out shopping for one.
Good luck
Thanks Ian

Hi everyone, not really visited the forum much since we replaced our trusty 940 as our towcar with a new XC90 D5 Geartronic 185bhp in March 2007. Previously I have been a "reader" rather than a "poster".

Came on today looking for pointers re new tyres as we need to replace our front ones now, but am now wondering if we may also have a problem with the AWD.

We have not noticed a problem. We were however surprised when we twice had problems in a muddy field last October, but put it down to unsuitable tyres (the original Continentals). We had a lot of front wheel spin, as evidenced by the mud splattered all up the side doors, but are not sure what the rear wheels were doing. Had to let the car roll back onto firmer ground to get going again.

Front tyres are now, after 19000 miles, only just legal, rears still have 5mm, although one edge is worn and tracking was found to be well out, now adjusted.

Car has just had its second service, but, after reading all the posts about the AWD problem , it seems the correct functioning of the AWD is not something that is checked. There have been no other problems with the car at all.

So.....does our (very minimal) experience in muddy fields, and the wear on the front tyres compared to the rear, point to a possible lack of AWD?

That's the point Roy - they don't. Its the sleeve that disintegrates and the shavings then trash all the seals in the unit, resulting no AWD and a weeping angle gear (which if left will become starved of oil and eventual gear failure - but the oil leak would have been noticed well before then). There are cases of weeping AGs without a stripped sleeve too and there's a tech bulletin describing resealing the unit (alarmingly this seems to be just a bead of mastic on the seams of the gear housing...).

I guess the design draws a fine line between making the sleeve stonger and causing vastly more expensive failure to the transmission / AWD in extreme torque cases. Hence Volvo's intimation (in my case) that the sleeve is the 'sacrificial' part in the whole setup - a wear item even!

Yes I read that tech note when I was trying to find out about the bevel gear failure, and warnings that if the unit lost oil it would most likey fail. The only photo I saw of a failed sleeve looked like it was corrosion that was the cause and I wondered what the cause of the corrosion could be. I did wonder if the transmission had been under water for some reason, which I know can lead to transmission failure in most four wheel drives.

Roy