Moment of silence for my V70, and the importance of OEM

[scot850]

Oh, you should have also seen his 'repairs' to the car. Truly scary!

Neil.

[scot850]

Well I think that makes the point about the owner............!

Neil.

[850 LPT]

So sorry to hear about your loss, Ben. But of course cars can be replaced. Lives cannot, so I'm really glad nothing happened to you!

Good luck with your new V50!

Dirk

[tama225]

I understand completely! Received new 2018 XC60 over a month ago but am still driving my 2003 V70, "The Silver Cloud" instead! What is wrong with me? High Ho Silver, Away!

[bmdubya1198]

Well I think that makes the point about the owner............!

Neil.

I love mediocre repairs... NOT! Some people have no business even owning cars!

[benpineapple]

For anyone else who may come across this: Did the mechanic get any more specific about how the leak occurred? Did the steel nub on the Fuel pump assembly break or did the quick connect fitting that attaches to it either detach from the pump assembly or leak past the o-ring?

If the steel pipe/nipple that the fuel line attaches to is intact, this might point to a problem with the quick connect fittings, which could be either the part on the fuel line or the steel pipe (part of the fuel sender assembly) that it locks onto may not be dimensionally right and the quick connect doesn't stay together or seal properly.

I'm not sure we should pass blame to PPS/Scantech without a little more detailed information and a little forensic analysis. Fuel leak in that area is kind of a big deal. The detailed cause, if it can be determined, might warrant a Volvo TSB if there isn't one already for the fuel lines/quick release mechanism, and/or (gulp) the NHTSA possibly getting involved if PPS sold a bunch of pump assemblies with improperly sized fittings that don't mate properly with that OE quick connect.

Edit: if the fuel line was also replaced with an OE or PPS replacement line (if PPS makes/sells that) somebody needs to get hold of the exact parts that were used in this case and determine if there's a problem. There could potentially be thousands of vehicles out in the wild driving around with a potential fire hazard defect/issue.

(Sorry for the late reply) Unfortunately the mechanic did not get any more specific about the leak, I think they just wanted the car gone. And, I still don't have any clarity on what exactly went wrong. The most specific they got, was saying the fire was caused by an "electrical issue at the pump". The fuel lines, and quick connect fittings were original. Best I can guess is that something got overworked, spiked the fuel pressure, blue the return line, and ignited. Beyond that, nothing concrete unfortunately.

I spoke with PPS last week, and they said this has never happened before, making my incident a rogue occurrence. Given that they have been in this business for a while, and this being the first time an issue like this ever happened, I think I believe them that this was a fluke.

[erikv11]

Not trying to light a fire here (sorry for the pun benpineapple) but I have no trust that PPS would tell a member of the lay public if they have had problems with a part that caused a vehicle fire. Especially to someone whose car flamed up. I'd say we are far more likely to find out on the forums, if there was such a problem, from self-reporting.

And yes, other than what we all know about the quality of their parts, I don't know anything about the company's people. But given they embrace a business model where it is fine to market so many parts of known low quality, and describe them as quality items ...

And to be fair I doubt there is some pervasive flaw in every PPS fuel pumo assembly that makes a broad action necessary, rather this comes with the territory when selling a lot of crap parts.