D4 VEA 'check engine' light / EGR fault thread

[Harvey1512]

You can't hear me but I am standing and applauding Marc01. I rang Volvo assist this morning, the light that had gone off came back on again last night and was still there this morning. They could not have been more helpful. I explained the situation and it was exactly as Marc01 stated. A very nice man turned up and checked the code. It is the EGR, again.......He has liaised with my local dealer to sort out the part. When that comes in they will arrange the booking. I have not broached it yet but the indication is that they will collect the car and leave me a hire car if required. (I'll report back if this is not the case.

Soooooo much better than me having to traipse in the wrong direction to drop off and then collect the car. Why did the dealer not advise this earlier? So stupid. This is really good service whereas having to go into the dealers is a total faff for me.

The moral of the story is that if the light come on and your car is within warranty and you have VA then ring them and remove the hassle from this. They really were very nice people.

[craigv60]

I'll say this for Volvo UK - they are certainly putting a lot of money into all the warranty work and customer support around this issue.

If only Volvo HQ had spent a bit more time and money actually testing the EGR coolers and valves before releasing the cars to customers.

The extra cost of a more rigorous testing pre-production programme must be a drop in the ocean compared with the still-rising costs of trying to fix the problem now the engine is in full production.

It's not as if Volvo really needed to rush the VEA engine into production - everyone was pretty happy with the 5-cylinder engines, and those engines are only just now being phased out.

[Priyantha]

Hi all,

I am Priyantha, living in The Netherlands, and I am driving a Volvo V40 D4 (85g Co2, even lower than the 99g which is available in the UK) Business Summum.
Currently I have nearly 65.000 KM on the clock(would be "40 389.1275" miles according to Google), I have the car since 02 January 2015.
At arround 62.000 KM on the clock I had a huge crash which resulted in big repairs and a long time at the bodyshop(around a month!) because it happened on the 22 of December 2015. The bill was nearly 13.000 Euros(would be "10 066.2993" British pounds according to Google) so it was a big one Luckily the Volvo proofed to be very safe indeed, I was perfectly well.

I have the theory that because of the long standstill of the car and the frequent short journeys the bodyshop made to and from the Volvo dealer nearby(there were a lot of mistakes made by the bodyshop) I think the EGR clogged up.

My own driving style can the seen as sporty but with great care for the technical side of things, that means that I am not pushing the car hard when it's cold for example. But I do drive very often at around 140 KPH ("86.9919669" MPH according to Google) and I drive it in the weekends on the twisty roads a lot, so I am not letting the EGR clogged up myself I thought.

But suddenly I got a warning light on the Dashboard and I plugged in my ODB2 Bluetooth reader en started up the Android App Torque Pro with the following result:



The above makes it clear in my view Below are pictures from the dashboard with the various warnings:





So I called the Volvo Service, they send a guy from the "ANWB Wegenwacht" that should be sister organisation to the "AA" in the UK, they connected their computer to the ODB2 port, the computer couldn't read the errors(my 5 pound ODB2 reader could 8)7 ) so he deleted them. We drove afterwards together a little bit and the performance seemed to be back to normal so he left.

That evening I was driving back to home and I notices some nasty shocks in the powertrain, the car didn't feel as crisp as it should be.
Also fuel consumption was very high, much higher than normal arround 30~40% more than normal.

The next morning(Monday) first thing I did was drive to my local Volvo dealership(also the supplying dealer) to let them check it. So I showed them the screenshots from Torque and the photos from the dashboard and told them I suspect the EGR and EGR-cooler, but they didn't see the errors in the system any more because the serviceguy from the "Volvo Service" had removed everything. The mechanic did see some values from a sensor out of range so he suggested to replace that sensor. We made an appointment for Wednesday, so two days later I came back to the Volvo dealership, in those two days the "Check Engine" light made his appearance again, so I said again please look into the EGR stuff.

But the mechanic was determined to replace first the sensor(I am not aware which one) and reset the computer, so after he done that, I told him "Thanks, but I will see you in a week back for the EGR".
I drove away and I drove immediately 80KM(49.7096954 miles) and the "Check Engine" light came back, so I called the Volvo dealer and told them I was on my immediate return to them.
So I was back speaking to the same mechanic in less than 2 hours, I told him also to look at the values of the lambda-sensors because I got "Catalyst Monitor Bank 1" "Test incomplete or dependant test failed" in Torque.
Well the sensor read-out did not show a nice sinus like you would expect, the mechanic had taken out the lambda-sensor to clean it(I am not really sure if that really helps?) and put it back in. The read-out was still not a nice sinus, but now the mechanic explained to me that's perfectly normale because VIDA converts it to a sort of digital signal which does not show a nice sinus.

Anybody here who can elaborate on this? If this is true?

And he ordered the parts for the EGR and EGR-cooler to have it replace, for next Wednesday(one full week further down), he told be it was perfectly fine to drive further and that I should not experience any problems.

Unfortunately bad luck....the car came back with exactly the same errors as above and with the same Error messages on the dash and limb-mode again...this happened on Sunday evening so I slowed down from 135 KPH(83.885111 MPH) to 95 KPG(59.0302633 MPH) because I didn't want to make things worse and drove back to home. The next morning(Monday) first thing I did was going to the Volvo dealership. I told them all the stuff and let them see the Torque screenshots again. And also I made pictures of my exhaust-pipes which had a lot of soot, see below:



They where shocked by seeing the above photos as was I too. They told me they would be getting the parts at around 2PM so they told me there was a slim chance they could get it done the same day.
I got a courtesy car from then, a MY15 V40 D2(1.6) R-Design, which drove okay, but the interior rattled like it was abused a lot a bit like my old Renaults after a high mileage. So I was able to go to my work.

The next morning I went to the dealer to work at the dealer so I could see what they where doing to the car also.
I went to the mechanic who was working on my car, the same as before, he was not yet finished with the EGR stuff.
At around 11AM I went back to the mechanic and he was finished with the EGR stuff, but he found some worrying stuff
See below for the pictures :





Okay what do we see there? Well the first two pictures are a Turbo oil pipe, there was a seal broken, which you can see on the last picture. On the third picture you can see some oil on something(I am not sure what it is) the fourth picture is a picture of the engine without the plastic on it.

After the mechanic ordered the part, it came in at around 1PM and he did put it together shortly after.
Then he connected the car to the VIDA and did a soot-cleaning.

Now I have my car back finally I do hope this was the last time, but I am certain yet. Fuel consumption looks still on the high side, but I will drive in a couple of minutes away for a longer journey so I will keep an eye on that.
Well I am going to try to enjoy my car again after this misery

[volvorocks]

Originally Posted by Marc01

Just call Volvo assist and ask them to come to your house, if the lights been on there should be a log.
If it needs to go to the dealer, arrange for them to come to your house and pick it up leaving you with a replacement if necessary.

I second that

Originally Posted by Harvey1512

My engine check light comes on for a few days and then goes off for a few days. No point taking the car in unless it is on as otherwise no fault is picked up.

I am no expert, but surely a log of all faults will be available when the dealer plugs the car in?

Originally Posted by Harvey1512

The moral of the story is that if the light come on and your car is within warranty and you have VA then ring them and remove the hassle from this. They really were very nice people.

Even nicer, when you have to constantly call them out and you become on first names with the recovery driver. Generally speaking breakdown have to come out which takes say an hour, then look at your car which say takes an hour, then once they have done the report as to what is wrong a courtesy hire car is authorised, which may take an hour or so. However if you constantly have faults, and you know what is wrong, just tell them over the phone, because they trust you are correct. It is generally local breakdown that comes out.If you are known to them they authorise a hire car before they get to you,they get to you, whip your car away and just as they have left a hire car turns up at your house. Done and dusted in around one hour thirty max...!!

Regards

[Priyantha]

Bad luck strikes again



Volvo Assistance is on it's way....
I will be tomorrow at the Volvo dealership again I suppose, and I think I have to be a bit more clear to them that I do not want to be get told that something is fixed when they clearly know that their solution is not the final solution.

[craigv60]

I had my second replacement EGR cooler fitted today, just over a year and 11,000 miles since the first replacement. The Check Engine light had been on solidly since December and had been intermittent for a month before that.

I have not had the chance for a proper test drive as yet but I couldn't detect any significant difference in driveability / performance etc on the way home. I'm assuming that the dealer downloaded the latest ECU update as part of the work.

[Harvey1512]

Mine is booked in now for March 22nd. "Will it last that long before the tortoise appears?" I asked the service manager. "Don't know" came the honest reply. They are fully booked doing these and regular work until then but he agreed if the tortoise appears then I should ring Volvo Assist and they will haul it down for them to do straight away and a hire car will be provided. Am I wrong to want the tortoise to pop up at this point? Like CraigV60, the check light is on permanently now.

I did ask if an end was in sight. He claimed Volvo now know how to resolve this but mysteriously they need to wait until the weather is warmer. He did not know why and had the good grace to laugh at that bit. I suspect, Craig, that you and I will be back in another 10-12k miles to get the permanent fix done unless they decide to do it voluntarily at servicing time.

[craigv60]

I did ask the dealer service manager the same question - i.e. what will Volvo do about implementing the permanent fix.

He replied: "At the moment we only know we will be fitting modified cooler pipes, but we don’t know yet if it will be a recall, or done during normal servicing."

I suspect they will try and fit it into normal servicing wherever possible.

[Harvey1512]

That seems fair. Better than waiting for them to fail and then doing it when you have been into the dealers for servicing anyway.

[andymcp]

Out of curiosity, has anyone asked for their EGR to be cleaned/checked when their car has been in for a routine service without any check light or tortoise? Just curious what a dealer would say if this was specifically requested to prevent repeat appearance...