Swirl flaps, worth fixing?
 

A bit of advice, if you would be so kind, on whether it would pay off to fix this?

XC70 2008. Engine system-service required message came on this week. Took it to a garage - they read a code P2015, and on investigation found that
a) the swirl flap arm was disconnected, and
b) the swirl flaps were stiff to move, surmising that they were possibly coked up.

They suggested that the arm had been disconnected for a while.

Cleared code and fault message hasn’t recurred.

So is there any evidence to suggest that it will be worth spending a few hundred to get this cleaned up and reconnected? Looking at forum it seems to be £3-600. Car seems to be running ok, passed MOT recently no probs (emissions figure was 0.44 as I recall). Av mpg (town and country driving) is 28.

One reason to get this fixed would be if the swirl flaps are stuck in a position that compromises performance or fuel economy. I recall being told (by my Volvo indie I think) that if they're in the open position, that means the car drives normally most of the time, but performance/economy wouldn't be as good at low speed, e.g. in traffic.

So if you can find out whether they're stuck in the open position, that might help you decide to part with the money. If you can move the control arm back and forth and it doesn't feel like there's much play, you could at least leave the throttle in the open position.

If you check the photos in my article (and one of the videos I link to), you should be able to figure out what position the control arm should be in to have the flaps fully open. This is all assuming, of course, that the control arm is still secure attached to the swirl throttle shaft (on mine it had a fair bit of play so the flaps would never have been fully open of fully closed, because the motor would have set it's open and closed positions based on the stop points on the control arm.

Hope this makes sense. To clarify, when I say 'throttle' I mean the following part:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BJI8_PMkBsk/maxresdefault.jpg

And when I say 'control arm' I mean the part attached to the LHS of the throttle's main shaft that's being held in the chap's fingers in the photo. I'm not talking about the link arm that goes between motor and control arm (as that's not relevant here).

Forgot to add, in my experience it did make the engine smoother, especially at low speeds (as the flaps were now closing). I'd like to say it also improved economy, but I don't want to make false claims. I have since been getting improved fuel economy, but I switched to only using Shell V-Power diesel after all the cleaning work, and that might be contributing to improved performance as well. And my thorough cleaning of the EGR valve and inlet manifold might have helped too - neither of which will probably be done by a garage as it's horrible work.

Thanks, I’d looked at your thread when I heard from the garage and no way will I do it myself what with having to take off the fuel pipes etc. A question - are the parts for cleaning easier to access than the swirl flaps?

I'm not sure I follow the question, because to clean the inlet manifold (the large black plastic camshaft-cover) and air-intakes on the cylinder head you need to remove the camshaft-cover, which requires fuel-pipe/injector removal. To be able to clean these parts, you need to fully dismantle everything, and therefore you might as well renew the swirl throttle assembly at the same time (the kit is £150).

The only part I cleaned that didn't require removal of the above was the EGR valve. It is probabably worth cleaning the EGR valve on it's own - it can't do any harm. I suspect that if your swirl flaps are gunged up, the EGR valve will be too.

Thanks for that explanation, clears it up for me. I’ll see what I get from my TerraClean thread.

have you had it terraclean'd? if not I'd advise against it, took out my EGR valve....well it failed within days of having it done on mine and had all sorts of interesting coloured smoke for a couple of days after it was done....never again for me..I had it done against the advice of the garage I work in, but I thought I've read so many people online claiming it made a difference i'd give it a shot anyway, I assume that was with people who have not looked after the car at all, apart from the funny coloured smoke and the egr failing it felt exactly the same before and after for me.

Volvo EGR valve for the D5 makes replacing the swirl kit look cheap, for reference we charge around £380 to replace the swirl kit, can't remember the price off hand, haven't got the best memory!

The swirl can cause a permanent limp mode, some people are lucky and just have the slight decrease in mpg and performance for years, others find it chucks the car in limp mode.

My guess is (and this really is a guess) that the ECM can't detect whether the flaps are actually open or not (ignoring the motor/control arm position sensors) as it would need some kind of air-flow meter inside the inlet manifold.

I reckon the limp-home issue is when the motor can't find it's stop position, eithe due to snapped link arm, or excess play on the throttle control arm, or some other fault. Mine's never gone into limp-mode, despite lack of link arm, so I'm really not sure on this. It didn't have a link arm when I bought it, so perhaps the previous owner experienced limp-mode.

FYI, I've taken a different approach to Terracleaning. After replacing my swirl throttle and cleaning the EGR valve just before Christmas, I then drove to southern France and back (for holiday) only running V-Power and Total Excillium. At first I was noticing black smoke when starting the car from cold, but it stopped doing this after a week. I'm hoping this was the result of the premium fuel additives cleaning things up. I'm mentioning this it might be cheaper to switch to premium fuel, although I would assume Terracleaning would do more, especially if it somehow gets into the air intake/inlet manifold/valves etc..

I'd be interested to hear what parts of the engine Terraclean can reach, and in what capacity - presumably it can't actually flood the air intake regions with cleaning liquids can it....

Hi gents.

I've did all the procedure, disconnected battery, new swirl flaps, Egr and throttle body cleaning, new valve cover gasket, changed new injector cooper washers.....etc

Now Volvo (Xc90 D5 185HP) doesnt start...just cranks....is there some air trapped?

Thx in advance!

Hi Parkl,

I do these swirl flaps all the time and you have to be really careful not to drop any carbon deposits down the inlet manifold when you take the old flaps out.

It is very tempting to clean all the carbon deposits off around were the flaps sit but in doing so it is very easy to let bits drop down the intake. I image this is what you have done ....

Anyway these bits land up getting squished onto the valve seats and in effect they prevent a good gas tight seal and you cant generate good enough compression to start the engine it just turns over and over.

You will need to charge up your battery overnight and also get another car to jump start along side and any other jump packs you can lay your hands on as you want to get a good cranking speed

Eventually you will start to get it firing on one cylinder and then it will start up shortly afterwards.

Don't burn out your starter in the process if it wont start after a few minutes then let the starter cool for a half hour before trying again.