'01 S60: Leaking Fuel

merovingian · Post by **merovingian** » 17 May 2009, 17:48

Mileage: 110,000

So about six months ago, the fuel gauge stopped working. It was annoying but I reasoned at that time that I didn't drive enough to have the tank dropped to investigate. Plus, I'm a full time student and I don't have that kind of money so, all things considered, I just was careful about filling up very few days and things seemed fine.

This should have probably been my first clue.

Over the last six months, when I do drive I've noticed that there's a certain amount of lag in getting the engine to fully turn over. It wasn't overly long but it wasn't instant. There were two instances on really cold days (10 degrees or so), that it turned over and then died. As soon as I restarted it, it was fine.

Leaving the grocery store today, twice my car started and then lost power. On the third start, it kept power and the drive home was fine. While unloading groceries, my girl friend asked what smelled like fuel and that's when we noticed a small trail of evaporating fuel in the parking lot leading to my car. We stood there and watched it for a few minutes and it doesn't appear to be leaking while its parked and shut off, so my limited deductive conclusion is that its leaking while its in motion.

I'm wondering therefore the following things:

1. Is this not the tank but the fuel line? Or if not that, then what?

2. Is it even worth fixing at this point? My car has 110k miles on it and the power steering is starting to have issues. So in reality, once I address this fuel problem which I'm going to guess is an expensive one, I still have a power steering pump and/or hoses to address.

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 17 May 2009, 17:52

It's probably the fuel line and only leaking when under pressure from the fuel pump. It it were the tank it would be leaking all the time and you'd have a haz-mat spill on your hands. I wouldn't dump the car yet - investigate what's wrong, it might be an inexpensive fix. Can you look under the car to try to locate the area of fuel leakage?

merovingian · Post by **merovingian** » 17 May 2009, 18:27

I tried to crawl under there and look but I can't really see much, unfortunately. It is definiately *not* leaking when its shut off so it likely is the line or (hopefully not) the pump itself.

If this is a relatively inexpensive fix, what would be the ballpark on the repair? I'm a full time student so this could get ugly fast.

Also, were this to be repaired... would the fuel gauge censor start working again?

merovingian · Post by **merovingian** » 18 May 2009, 10:38

Update:

I took it into the shop but its probably not good. They found fuel on the outside of the tank but they don't know where its coming from or what's causing it. I looked at the car while it was on the lift and saw the fuel myself. It's not a lot, but it's there. Being that the system is sealed, they'll have to drop the tank to locate the source of the leak. The shop estimates between 5-7 hours of labor just to get accomplish that much. The labor for it, as you can imagine, is pretty expensive.

The mechanic feels fairly certain that it's probably the tank and it has a crack in it. If its not that, it could be the fuel pump or the line but the majority of the labor will be in dropping the tank. He was honest in that he wasn't sure it was a good idea to continue with the repair given the age of the car, the mileage and such unless I was serious about holding on to it for another 100,000 miles and if I had about $2k to drop into this.

So, I don't know?

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 18 May 2009, 11:00

merovingian wrote:Update:

I took it into the shop but its probably not good. They found fuel on the outside of the tank but they don't know where its coming from or what's causing it. I looked at the car while it was on the lift and saw the fuel myself. It's not a lot, but it's there. Being that the system is sealed, they'll have to drop the tank to locate the source of the leak. The shop estimates between 5-7 hours of labor just to get accomplish that much. The labor for it, as you can imagine, is pretty expensive.

The mechanic feels fairly certain that it's probably the tank and it has a crack in it. If its not that, it could be the fuel pump or the line but the majority of the labor will be in dropping the tank. He was honest in that he wasn't sure it was a good idea to continue with the repair given the age of the car, the mileage and such unless I was serious about holding on to it for another 100,000 miles and if I had about $2k to drop into this.

So, I don't know?

Well you might just have a leak from the fuel pump or sender cover seal(s) (or one of the hoses), both of which are accessible from inside the car without dropping the tank. I'd take a look there first. Here's how to get to them (but your mechanic should already know that, did you take it to a Volvo shop?):

S60FuelPumpAndSender2001.pdf: (148.63 KiB) Downloaded 309 times

merovingian · Post by **merovingian** » 18 May 2009, 12:46

vegasjetskier wrote:
Well you might just have a leak from the fuel pump or sender cover seal(s) (or one of the hoses), both of which are accessible from inside the car without dropping the tank. I'd take a look there first. Here's how to get to them (but your mechanic should already know that, did you take it to a Volvo shop?):
S60FuelPumpAndSender2001.pdf

Negative

I live in a small college town in the Midwest, where people are still loyal to Pontiac because there was an assembly plant near here at some point in its pre-death history. Most people here drive American and Japanese, there are very few imports. The nearest Volvo shop is about 40 miles away and they have a terrible reputation, actually. I had to fight them on honoring a recall, actually, and had to involve Volvo itself, which was a whole other harrowing story

The shops are basically franchiseshere : Walmart, Midas, etc. There is only one import shop in town and which is run part time and never seems to be open. The dealerships in town are more willing to take it on but with those comes high markups on labor.

Post by **vegasjetskier** » 18 May 2009, 12:50

Well you could take a look yourself. It might just need a new hose or o-ring.

Post by **MadeInJapan** » 18 May 2009, 15:15

I agree- instructions are in the link above and we can help you the rest of the way- that's what this site is all about anyway- you've come to the right place!