2000 S80 infamous hard to start issue

aussieviking · Post by **aussieviking** » 13 May 2019, 00:46

Hi all, long time reader new time member. Firstly let me say that this site has helped me greatly over the last 3.5 years as my wife and I also have an XC90 as our main car. Thankyou to all the contributors on here that go unthanked by the many people that just look through and find what they need and leave.

First of all I need to give a little backstory so please bear with me. Having had another Volvo for two years at the time I decided to get my feet even wetter by looking at getting a 2nd Volvo.. I missed out on some cheap S60's and then started looking at the dreaded S80 T6 model. Knowing full well what I might be potentially getting myself in to one day I made a purchase interstate for a very good price considering it had no transmission issues at the time and the body and interior are in great condition I thought I did pretty good.

Sure enough, a month or so after owning it I started getting transmission codes and getting locked in to third gear. VIDA reported that the third gear ratio was out of spec even after full line pressure apply. I tried a few things like trans fluid modifiers and just kept driving it avoiding third gear engagement using manual shift everywhere. Moving forward and being no stranger to working on cars in general I had already promised myself to attempt the transmission rebuild if I ever had the issue happen to me when I bought the S80.

So over the last 6 months on and off, I have removed the engine and trans, cleaned them both up as they were filthy, rebuilt one of the turbos due to excessive shaft play, performed a complete rebuild and upgrade of the transmission internals as well as install a shift kit, and reinstalled back in the car.

Present day: the car itself has now been hit and miss when it comes to starting since putting it back together. Sometimes it will start instantly. Sometimes it will start after 3 attempts. And sometimes not at all... walk away in frustration, then come back and it works. Edit: The car cranks and will continue to crank but will not fire up. The transmission rebuild on the other hand has worked flawlessly. This starting issue did not exist before the repairs.

So far I have checked the following -

Fuses

Engine timing and VVT hub spring alignment

Cam position sensor

Crank position sensor

Rerouting of the cam and crank sensor wiring away, or back behind the starter motor with more shielding

Fuel pressure (jumps to 40psi straight away after turning key to II)

Spark plugs

Coilpacks

Engine grounds

Battery is new as the old one went flat and couldn't be resurrected while I was doing the rebuild

Key barrel antenna

ETM operation via the VIDA self diagnostic test (all well within factory limits)

Any ideas what might be causing this but I'm not generating a code?

Next I'll be looking at backprobing the crank and cam position sensors to ensure they are actually giving the expected voltage, but I had tested them out of the car and replaced with another 2nd hand unit and they appear to function as expected on their own both the old and 2nd hand units.

When cranking it over on the DDM I see "no oil pressure" flash up for a second or two while trying to get it to start. Does anyone know if it might be a dodgy oil pressure switch if this could be telling the ECU not to fire? I'm not sure if this is one of the safeguards in place but it did cross my mind only earlier today.

This is really starting to get me as when the car does start up, it's instant and runs as smooth as silk... the transmission even smoother than butter on a warm summers day.

Any internet knowledge appreciated. I may even gather together a collection of pictures of the rebuild and post here in appreciation for all the knowledge I've gathered through this forum over time.

Post by **DeadEric** » 13 May 2019, 04:56

KOEO does fuel pressure shoot up to 40, drop a bit when the prime stops then hold steady or fade away?

aussieviking · Post by **aussieviking** » 13 May 2019, 06:20

DeadEric wrote: ↑13 May 2019, 04:56 KOEO does fuel pressure shoot up to 40, drop a bit when the prime stops then hold steady or fade away?

Hey thanks for the quick reply. Not remembering the exact details of my earlier fuel testing I just went out in to the cold and hooked up the gauge.

Interesting note... upon first turning the key to position II after hooking the gauge up the pressure only went up to 20psi and stayed there.

Turned it to off, back to position II and it shot up to 50psi. It took exactly 1 minute and it slowly dropped to 40psi and held there for several minutes. Attempted to start and it started instantly and shot up and held just under 60psi while idling.

Could the first 20psi lazy prime be when I would have had a no start condition? Or is this only because all the fuel came out the rail when I screwed on the gauge? I have left the gauge on and will check it in the morning to see what it has gone down to overnight and what the first turn of the key prime is, as well as if it will start upon that first prime.

Post by **DeadEric** » 13 May 2019, 13:36

I was thinking bad pressure regular, check valve or leaking injector.

I'm not sure what the fuel pressure specs are so hopefully someone will chime in with those.

aussieviking · Post by **aussieviking** » 13 May 2019, 21:15

Ok so things have gone in a different direction.

I checked the fuel pressure this morning and it started off at 25psi before touching the car. It also stayed on 25psi after turning to position II and after one successful start and one non-start. My wife noticed that when it did start I had got her to keep it on position II for a while because I was waiting to see if the gauge would shoot up.

Turns out that the gauge was stuck frozen or something so none of the readings I took this morning were accurate as it was stuck on 25psi for the mornings tests.

After testing four starts so far now, leaving it on position II for 15 seconds or so then starting it has worked every time. Two things could be happening during this time, the pump could be having trouble priming the rail, or the ETM is getting stuck during it's self test (this is the click-buzzing noise-click anyone may notice when they first put their cars to position II).

Fingers crossed I have nutted it out now thanks to a second pair of eyes on it.

aussieviking · Post by **aussieviking** » 20 Jan 2020, 06:16

Sorry to resurrect this one but I figure someone out there might find the following information useful on how I fixed the issue.

So after all I did last time the issues never really went away fully and actually got worse, I put up with it for another 3 months and just let the registration on the car lapse; and have been driving my other car for 6 months.

Picking up from where I left off. I checked that the ETM was operating as it suggested it was in the diagnostics by taking the lower intake pipe off and putting a little camera down there. I can post a video but sure enough when you put the key to position II it cracks the throttle open a little in anticipation of starting then closes a little while later. So if anyone hears a buzzing noise when they put it to position II and don't start the car you know what it is. The throttle auto opens and closes a little while cranking (as someone would normally pump the throttle a little bit while trying to start a hard starting car).

My inconsistent fuel pressure issue was being caused by my cheapo fuel pressure checking kit which is two hoses that connect together (to get the right size) and there is a check valve between them that needs to be pressed down. So it's great for checking initial pressure but seems unreliable after that. Regardless, the plugs were always wet when I pulled them out so I just trusted that fueling was not an issue.

Now on to the fix... a couple of weeks ago I buckled down and thought it's time to get this car sorted so I can use it again. I gathered all the info I could off this forum and was determined to get it working. I wrote down what I knew / had been tested on white board and came up with it being either coilpack grounds, trans/engine grounding, or crank sensor interference from starter or the starter cable.

TL;DR

Checked/tested all groundings with multi meter, all seem fine.

Removed crank and cam sensors, wrapped them in tinfoil then conduit, wrap/taped.

Sanded the surfaces of the crank angle sensor bracket.

Found a couple of bell housing bolts that were loose... nutted them down.

Singled out the starter cable, wrapped in tinfoil and then conduit, wrap/taped.

I am pleased to say that the car now starts instantly within half a second of cranking. I've not experienced this for a long time, it really does seem to be completely resolved. I hope this helps others out that have this annoying issue.

I will post up some pics tomorrow when I get them off my phone.

aussieviking · Post by **aussieviking** » 20 Jan 2020, 18:32

On the left is what the crank and cam sensors looked like after I wrapped them. What they look like normally on the right.

Starter cable wrapped.

Crank and cam sensor wiring that goes behind/near the starter.

Shot of the starter shows the wrapped starter cable and the crank/cam sensor wires behind it wrapped.

: starter.jpg (361.32 KiB) Viewed 3239 times

Post by **June** » 20 Jan 2020, 19:10

FYI I had the same problem intermittently and it was the crank sensor. According to my dealer mechanic once going bad, the magnetic portion intermittently looses contact cold and once hot it expands making constant contact. Being the cause of hard cold starts. At least that's how it was explained to me. June

knsanford · Post by **knsanford** » 11 Jun 2021, 11:03

I've had a difficult time getting my 2000 S80 T6 started in humid/wet weather. For years I had it stored in the garage and it always started fine, but if I left it outside or at the airport parking, it would start or not depending on the weather. There is no water leak under the hood or draining issues.

I did have the throttle position / acceleration issue that was resolved several years back by sending the ETM (throttle body) to XeMODeX. I've also had a full tune up in the last two years.

The symptoms are: cranking without the engine starting and often accompanied by the tachometer jumping around erratically. If that happened, trying to start it again immediately has the same effect, so I learned to leave the key in the run position for a few minutes which enables the fuel pump I assume, then try again. It might take several iterations of this before it finally starts, and then it runs rough for a while and smells like gas. This was a reasonable work-around since the car has 185K miles, until eventually, the engine would stall unexpectedly - usually at lower speeds, but it happened even at 65MPH.

From these forums, there were numerous posts about the need to clean the ETM (which I've never had to do for any other car I've owned) plus I knew it had been done when I put in the ETM returned from XeMODeX. Rather than take it into a shop again for this problem that they were never able to fix, I pulled out the ETM, cleaned it with Mass Air Cleaner (which is what I had on hand), and put it back in. It was visibly dirty, but I wouldn't say there was enough build up that would cause reduction in airflow or interfere with the mechanical baffle. It has since rained here for two weeks straight and the car has started up the first time each day it was driven.

At about the same time, the battery was sometimes draining on it's own to the point where the engine wouldn't turn over without a jump. It is only two years old, so I thought it was going bad, but historically, every battery I've had in this car went bad before three years and would go dead if left for a week without starting it. In reading up on this, I learned that there is a rechargeable battery in the car alarm that will cease to recharge over time, then steal charge from the main battery. There is a 5amp fuse for the alarm in the side of the dash that I removed which causes a brief Alarm Service Required message on the dash at start up, but ever since I did this, I haven't had the battery get to the point where the car wouldn't start.

I hope this is helpful to someone with the same (similar) model to mine. It's been a long, frustrating road.