Hot fresh air no matter what outside temp in 2008 XC70

guidingcenter · Post by **guidingcenter** » 29 Oct 2009, 17:44

Apologies in advance if I am out of line a la Forum etiquette but I am desperate and never posted before (though I have conducted over 20 repairs on my old S70 based on info in these Fora). Here is the problem:
We have a 2008 XC70 with about 22,000 miles on it. All sched maintenance completed. When we turn off the AC and place the thermostats (left and right) on anything including LO we get hot air out of the vents no matter what the outside temperature is (down to 45 F degress so far). Yes we have fresh air not recirc selected. Also, it doesnt always happen at night, sometimes at night, in the same lineup, it comes out almost as cool as the outside air. Does not seem to be correlated with the engine temp or whether the car has been running for awhile or not. Dealer says this is normal-reloaded software etc. I dont see anything normal about erratic behavior. We have had three volvos including a 2005 V70 all with full climate control and when we wanted fresh air in the cabin without AC cooling we got it at pretty close to the outside temperature.

Already Tried:
went through a solid two weeks of trying virtually every different ventilation lineup and temperature settings including cycling the thermostats to see if something could be knocked loose or whatever. Nothing has solved the problem.

Please any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Post by **JRL** » 29 Oct 2009, 19:31

I would venture to guess that no one on this forum knows anything about these cars.
You're under warranty, get down to your dealer, take the service manager for a drive and SHOW him what's wrong.

You can go to www.XC70.com and go to the 08 forum but again, these are all under warranty so no one is working on them on their own...yet so no one knows much about them.

Good luck, badger your dealer

guidingcenter · Post by **guidingcenter** » 29 Oct 2009, 19:42

Thanks. I'm doing that tomorrow as a matter of fact. The guy has already told me on the phone that "this is by design". He said that he has an older S80 and it does the same thing - its normal. I figured that someone here would have some knowledge of the climate control system since it is apparently the same as that of earlier S80s. Finally, yes its under warranty, but when the dealer says its normal cant find anything wrong with it...Thanks again
PS-been to www.xc70.com nada

Post by **JRL** » 30 Oct 2009, 05:23

After thinking about this, they may be right.
The new car's HVAC design doesn't allow for true outside air to come thru. and if it's over 50-55 degrees outside, all you may get is warm air.
You can't expect 60 degree air to come out the dash, it passes thru a hot engine compartment

guidingcenter · Post by **guidingcenter** » 02 Nov 2009, 16:27

Actually it doesn't pass through the engine compartment at all. The intake vents are on the left and right sides of the car near the windshield and just under the hood. They are isolated from the engine compartment because the hood has a rubber seal across it near its back end. Doesnt matter. Took your advice and badgered the dealer enough to have them recheck the outlet temps and compare against new car-lo and grab hold they found a 15 to 20 F temperature difference. Enough to cause them to replace the entire climate control system. So thanks good advice.