Register
Search
Help
Model years 2003-2005 were made with automatic transmissions that fail early and often.
The parts guys at my Volvo dealership told me recently that it’s the XC90 T6′s that are the ones to avoid at all costs. They said it’s a GM designed/partially assembled transmission on these XC90′s that was a pile of junk from the drawing board. They said there aren’t anywhere near the number of transmission problems with the T5′s or the V8 model XC90s.
Here’s the XC90 T6 Transmission thread for more on that. Please post to that if you’ve had a XC90 T6 transmission failure.
Well I am just another casualty of the XC90′s transmission path of distruction and heartbreak. I purchase my 2003 XC90 on December 7, 2008 and just yesterday February 2, 2009, on my way to work, the transmission decides to stop working. My car is a T6 unfortunately and what kills me the most is that I haven’t even had my car 2 whole months. A hard lesson learned.. I am heartbroken! I know that when you buy a used car(which this one was although it only had 62,500 miles when I bought it 12/2008) you know that there could be problems coming your way more so than a new car. I was ready for that, but not less than 2 months after I bought the car. Please, is there any good news or hope that the transmission has been corrected?
I have a Volvo XC70 and my wife complained about some grabbing with the transmission. Sure enough, the service guy said it was pretty much shot. The good thing is even though it is a 2005 that went into service in 2003 and I literally went over 50K miles this weekend and am out of warranty, Volvo paid for $3900 of the $4400 it was going to cost. I asked why the generosity and the service manager at the Volvo/Audi dealer said Volvo knows about the problem and are helpful in repairing it. Spending $500 beats trading up for a new one of an XC90 which i was going to do (which I am not sure about now knowing about these problems).
Hello
I own a 2005 Volvo xc90, i would just like to warn you all about the problems that comes with a volvo.( I know we have had three and the only 1 that worked properly was the 1996 v70). The car was great until +-60 050 km when I was towing my Jet-ski at 125 km/h and i put my foot flat to overtake a truck. It was like i was in neutral. I put my foot flat and nothing happened the car just revved. Then a message appears,”transmission service Urgent.” I was 200 km from the nearest town. What to do I had my whole family with me + my parents. Got a tow truck Took it to the Garage the next day and they told me it would take 6 weeks for a new gearbox. Still under warranty did not have to pay anything, +-65 000 power-steering fluid leak. Car went in 3 times that month. +-72 563 km prop-shaft disconnected/broke. 3 weeks for a new one +-80 000 gearbox again my wife in the middle of Johannesburg. another 4 weeks. 90 000 side shaft comes out of place 2 weeks in garage. I found out Volvo had fitted the wrong part to my xc 90. So much for Quality Inspection!!! If I had been going fast I would have had a serious accident. 95 690 Power steering leak AGAIN!! At 100 000 km bought an extended warranty R45 000 . But that gave me an extra 40 000 km of warranty. At 107 689 power-steering leak Again. We were on a 4 000 km trip so it turned out to be very expensive. Last week we just did 111 156 km when my wife went to pick up the kids from school. As she drove out of the parking lot the power steering pipe burst spraying the fluid everywhere. We have now had it with volvo they have terrible customer service, even Volvo SA is useless. We have had lots of other minor problems with the car but these are the main if anyone is thinking of buying an XC DON’T, you would be better of with a trolley on wheels. We are very very disappointed with volvo and will never buy another one again. If you have a volvo xc 90 sell it before the warrenty expires or it will cost you an arm and a leg for the repairs. We have now had Nearly R 150 000 Rands worth of stuff replaced. Anyone else had major problems let me know.
Hmmm – 125km/h towing and you put it on the floor. For us Americans that doing about 75 and putting the accelerator on the floor with a very heavy vehicle, towing something. I agree these transmission’s have issues but I’m also tired of reading the over glorified stories of how my transmission blew up. Maybe I’ll feel different when mine blows up but I’m going to do something about it.
Agree with Big Dog. Anyone that drives that fast speed hauling a trailer tells me all I need to know about the validity of the rest of the claims. It is both unsafe and abusive to the vehicle and tranmission. I have the V8 and never had any issues with it. But then again I drive at safe speeds for towing. Including over mountain passes.
You guys are idiots…any well built vehicle could handle towing a jet ski with a 40lb tongue wait at 75mph. I’ve had crappy Vw with 90hp Tdi that can handle that work…
Yes the T6 is a horrible, horrible vehicle due to transmission issues but the T5 and V8 can handle such conditions.
FYI he was talking about his lightweight V70…read again…
Had the same problem with ours at about 70,000 miles, well out of warranty but the local dealer covered it. Be sure and ask as it can save a lot of money.
Apparently this transmission is quite reliable in smaller GM vehicles but when Volvo chose to use it in a very heavy vehicle like the XC90, it fails prematurely.
T6 XC90 2005 mine was slipping through the gears and the “transmission service Urgent.” sign came on the other day and we took it to parkside Volvo and they tried to charge £200 to tell me that i needed a new gearbox at a cost of £ 5850 we complained and they offered 10% discount!!! we are looking at alternatives – that really is shocking shame as they are great cars but this leaves a bad taste in your mouth and a hole in your wallet !!!
I had to get my engine overhauled the B6294T busted gasket cracked cylinder head, antifreeze coming out of the exhaust (volvo was dumbfounded) oh and here is the real kicked it costed 6,000 to fix it all. I had an extended warrenty from a company called interstate that called it a manufacters defect when clearly it was not since the cases document of this problem are like no more then 15 or so. so after having a long battle with Volvo and interstate i finally bit the bullet and paid the 6 grand but i am in the process of sueing interstate and volvo.
Add me to the list of surprised (yep, did not hear about the transmission problems until after the fact) Volvo XC90 owners. With 44k miles, my 2004 XC90 gearbox blew out yesterday and now I am looking at a $7k plus bill to replace/fix it. I am shocked Volvo has not addressed this problem with a recall after reading online about all of the problems people are having. This is supposed to be a LUXURY CAR AND BRAND! Volvo should act like it if they really want to compete with BMW, Mercedes and Audi. Just incredibly disappointing!
We bought our 2005 T6 xc90 about two years ago and haven’t had any problems. Unless you count the rear entertainment tv gear breaking. However, three months ago, I replaced (myself) the front passenger axle. Not too big of a job as I replaced it in about 5 hours. This Thanksgiving were driving to my folks house about 8 hours away and the same axle went out. We were able to hobble close enough to their house to get it trailered to their house. We replaced the axle with a new one and it took about a week for that one to go bad.
The dealership in Richardson, TX retro-fitted a used 2007 tranny from a salvaged (wrecked) XC90 in my ’03 T6. I have no idea how they accomplished this, but have not had ANY issues since. I do know that it took almost a month and custom fitting to couple it with the T6. The same dealership did my complete suspension on my ’99 C70 all parts available from IPD plus aftermarket struts and coils. Not all of my volvo friends have had the same wonderful experience with Volvo of Richardson, but if you are in Dallas and treat their service team well I would definitely recommend them. They did amazing suspension work on my C70 before I crashed it (I could turn on a dime in a convertible although I couldn’t take a speed bump lol) and since they working on my XC90 tranny – no problems and I do drive it very hard. If you have problematic tranny, I suggest investigating retro-fit options.
I have a 2008 XC90 T6, and recently have been paying alot of attention to handling, given my family and I have been on some long road trips. I always felt the car was difficult to handle since we bought it 1 yr ago, rounding corners etc, and found the XC drifting alot/oversteering. So, as I was driving down the freeway as 70MPH or so, I noticed the car was weaving left to right very slightly (from one side of the lane to the other over a few hundred feet – not noticeable if you aren’t looking for it as you are most probably correcting with the steering wheel and thinking nothing of it). This weaving happens as I apply gas, in free wheel it isn’t there. Its like as if the application of Torque is being applied on one side of the car too much, then on the other to compensate and back and forth. I keep the steering wheel dead straight, and its like as if there’s a gremlin in the engine doing this weaving thing. Any ideas?
Yesterday we got a problem with the automatic transmission. The displaymessage was transmission emergency service. The car also had powerloss and took off very slowly in the first gear. We went to our dealer in Delft. The transmission was stucked in the third gear was the conclusion after checking the boardcomputer. Problem is solved for the moment by resetting boardcomputer. We have a volvo xc90 T6 from 2004 since two months with about 55000 miles.
I have a 2003 XC90 that I purchased used in 2008. 3 months after my purchase I had transmission problems, it wouldn’t switch gears. I take it to a Volvo repair center in which they not only replaced the tranny but other parts that were faulty. A week after that the truck would slide in and out of gears of it’s own free will, whether driving or parked. I take it back, they fix it, but when I get it back there’s a grinding sound when I accelerate. The guy tells me it’s the driveshaft rubbing against the driveshaft shield….as if that’s normal or even ok. 6 months later the driveshaft needs to be replaced. This is absurd! I don’t tow anything, I don’t floor the accelerator, and I’m no mechanic but I know that the driveshaft shouldn’t be rubbing against anything. Between 2003 and 2005 many a Volvo was manufactured with faulty parts and instead of doing a recall or even covering expenses for repairs of said faulty parts Volvo intends for the consumer to come out of pocket to fix a problem that arose during production. From fuel pumps to transmissions to sunroof drainage reservoirs, these autos have bad parts. I don’t hate Volvo but I do hate the method used to handle issues under these circumstances. I would never say “Don’t buy a Volvo” but I will say “Don’t buy an XC90 between 03′ and 06′”. But to think that the problems with these vehicles somehow are the fault of the driver(s) or the consumer(s) is ridiculous at best and a shift of blame at the least. And to say that Volvo shouldn’t be held responsible, simple put, you must be stupid!
I agree with you on the XC90. Volvo should take care of what is obviously a design fault.
I don’t see where you found this Volvo blog entry or generally the MVS Volvo Forum’s consensus is against my assertion. Who said Volvo shouldn’t be held responsible?
Hi, we’ve now also got this transmission problem! – we bought a used Volvo XC90 T6 (2003 – 70k miles) during December 2011 and in March 2012 we are having problems with the gears slipping making it undriveable and dangerous – I’ve been quoted today by by local Volvo dealer to repair and replace the unit would be £4,511 GBP.
I’ve raised it with Volvo UK, Motorcodes Ltd (car problems for UK consumers) and VOSA (Vehicle Operator Services Agency).
Now I want to try and establish what % ratio of 2003 to 2005 XC90 T6′s have experienced this problem?? I also want to try and establish why no safety recall was made by Volvo?? If you also have this problem please post here with the details – many thanks toby, England.
My 2005 XC90 T6 experienced a transmission failure at 172,000 km’s. It would stick in 3rd gear and not allow any shifting, even manual. The Service technician I took it to said “Good news!”…as it is a GM manufactured transmission, it can be rebuilt using GM parts”…at apparently significant cost savings (vs. a new or refurbished Volvo transmission). So I got away “lucky”, only spending $3,300.00 (Can.) It shocks me that Volvo doesn’t step up and acknowledge this flaw and support it’s loyal customer base…or perhaps they don’t care about loyalty.
My volvo XC90 T62004 model with nearly 90.000 km have just show the transmission service urgent…im wainting for the dealer to provide me a quote for fixing the issue
I have an xc90 and at this very moment I am sitting waiting for yet another tow truck to pick my vehicle up and take it back to the dealership. As I understand now, there are many problems with this model. Mine is the 95 turbo. I have had several volvos and never once was steered away from my favorite luxury brand. I never even thought to research this purchase because of the solid volvo reputation. Currently, my sterio is inop, my rear entertainment center inop, the vehicle will not shift into any mode. I just picked it up last week where I was required to pay 470 USD for a new key fob and was informed that my strut pads were shot as well as the motor mounts on the engine. This vehicle has never been wrecked and I pay very close attention to oil changes and servicing… As my brother was a former government prosecutor and we have an enormous base of legal help in our family, I am wondering if a suit wouldnt be in order. Maybe that way Volvo will take note of this error in production and step up its quality control… Thoughts?
Sorry, mistake… my last Volvo was a 95. My current is a 2005
There’s been talk (here, maybe elsewhere) of a suit in regards to the XC90 T6 models’s transmissions. I don’t know where those went, if anywhere.
Let us know if you pursue this.
I have a 2004 Volvo XC90 T6 that just got a brand new transmission, radiator, etc. last month at the certified Volvo dealership in town. Before the tranny failed, I was getting approx 18-22 MPG in town. I am now getting a whopping 12.3 MPG in town… I only use premium fuel in my car… Any ideas on what will fix this? I hear some talk online of a ECM software update to fix this problem- is that true? If so, what do I ask for when I call my service center??
Thanks!