The black plastic tab breaks off and the spring is no longer under tension
Note: mine broke 5 minutes after removal, another XC70 owner had his break in the same location and he got a temperature warning



Very interesting, appreciate the details. Simply it's a very poor design with plastic ...

I just pulled my thermostat yesterday and found that one of the tabs circled was broken with the spring and cross member sitting in the block... I also received eng temp warning after sitting with AC off for a while then starting to drive.

I have an 08, owned since 2012 and has been pretty reliable overall. Never been left stranded but it's age is showing with small things popping up as with any aged car. I perform all maintenance myself to keep overall up-keep costs down because as you probably already know, parts are not always ...

Revitalizing this thread.

Did a keyword search for "cooling fan" in this forum and only pulled up 6 results. Anyone have any experience with this since the OP posted this in 2015. I'll be doing this next week.