2 More Monitors Not Set After Repairs, 1998 v70

[MrAl]

Can you actually correlate the changing of the monitors to the work done or did you just happen to check the status after work performed? Drive it normally and don't worry about it. Those two reset in 50 miles or less.

If the engineers hadn't put monitors on these things everyone would cheat and never fix their cars..and we all breathe 1970s smog and blame " udders"

Hi there Steve,

Thanks for the very reasonable reply

Yes, i can exactly and perfectly correlate based on several different aspects of what took place in time.
First, i took photographs (as i almost always do) of the little OBD2 tester which displays the information on a small LCD screen, and this was done just before inspection. A few days after the radiator repair i took photos of the same tester (that was yesterday) and that showed the two 'extra' monitors being displayed as "inc" instead of what they previously showed which was "ok".
Second, the car passed inspection at the same garage just about two weeks before any work was done, and that could only happen if there were two monitors or less 'not ready' or 'inc' for this car. Now there are three monitors 'not ready' or 'inc'. "inc" stands for "incomplete".
Third, that's the only garage that does any work on the car for the past year or so except for the oil change which was done over a year ago by a different garage.

As far as i know there is no way a monitor could go from "Ok" to "Inc" (or not ready). I know they can go from "ok" to "error code", but the only way i know of for a monitor to go from "ok" to "inc" is if someone resets the codes.

What i cant help but suspect is that after the work there was an error code that they found and by resetting the monitors the check engine light would go out so it looks all well and good.

Of course this may not be the case, but then there is no reasonable answer why the two extra monitors were 'inc' when the car was returned to me.

I'll wait some miles and see what happens i guess. But even if those two monitors go back to "ok" that will still not answer the question of what happened. I will ask about this in another thread.

Note that having three monitors not ready means that the car would not pass inspection if i had to take it tomorrow. And it JUST passed last month.

Look at it this way:
If your fine running car just passed inspection (monitors OK) and you lent me your car for 6 hours and i returned it and you saw two of your car monitors set to "not ready", what would you think happened?

[abscate]

I would think the battery had been disconnected, the codes reset via OBD, or somehow power was interrupted to the ECU.

The Catalyst monitor looks at the ration of the two O2 sensors, so it could be a single wiring failure in the O2 sensor causing both those monitors to glitch

[MrAl]

I would think the battery had been disconnected, the codes reset via OBD, or somehow power was interrupted to the ECU.

The Catalyst monitor looks at the ration of the two O2 sensors, so it could be a single wiring failure in the O2 sensor causing both those monitors to glitch

Hi Steve,

Oh ok thanks. I'll be checking them more regularly now.

Well if the battery was disconnected the radio would not work right? Unless they got the codes for that car and reset it, but then why would they not tell me that?
Also, it was only those two codes and at least one of the other ones that takes a long time to complete was NOT reset, but remained "ok". These leads me to think that they reset only those two codes, or maybe just the oxy sensor like you were implying i think. From my other post one reply was that they can in fact change only 'one' code at a time, to reset it back to 'inc'.

But it is deceitful that they wont tell me why.

[MadeInJapan]

Ask the garage these questions...do you have your radio code in your glove box, or like me, written on top of the radio with a sharpie where it's easily accessible to someone working on the car?

[MrAl]

Hi there,

No, i dont have the code written anywhere in the car itself or anywhere that would be accessible to anyone other than me
I didnt want to take a chance on someone getting the code.
However, since i bought the car in the area i guess it is possible that the code may have been transferred by way of mouth, but as i said in a previous post there are other monitors that were NOT reset that often take a long time to go back to 'ready' or 'inc' whatever you want to call it. So it looks like the battery was not disconnected. That's why i asked if is was possible to reset just one or two monitors and not have to reset ALL of them at the same time.
See with my little tester, i can reset the monitors too, but i can ONLY reset ALL of the monitors at the same time, and what that means for this car is that several of the monitors (not just 3) would be reading "incomplete" or "not ready" for several weeks. In the present situation there are only 3 monitors that are not complete yet.

[abscate]

Ive found all the monitors go ready in 10 miles except EVAP, which needs the drive cycle (and sometimes more)

A higher end scanner (like garages often have) probably can reset monitors individually, but there isn't any reason to do this. Sometimes electronics glitch too.

I think I would start at zero by resetting the ECU and seeing how long things take to go ready to see if you have a real issue or are you just chasing ghosts

Pretty much anyone in the business can crack or access a radio code btw, which is why they aren't used anymore too much. Ive also disconnected my battery and found my code wasn't needed too.

[MrAl]

Ive found all the monitors go ready in 10 miles except EVAP, which needs the drive cycle (and sometimes more)

A higher end scanner (like garages often have) probably can reset monitors individually, but there isn't any reason to do this. Sometimes electronics glitch too.

I think I would start at zero by resetting the ECU and seeing how long things take to go ready to see if you have a real issue or are you just chasing ghosts

Pretty much anyone in the business can crack or access a radio code btw, which is why they aren't used anymore too much. Ive also disconnected my battery and found my code wasn't needed too.

Hi again,

Interesting information.

Believe me when i say that this car takes longer to have the monitors go "ready". 10 miles is no where near enough as i have found out several times in the past year or so when i had other problems where i needed to reset the monitors, and i didnt know there might be a way to reset only one of them.

So you are also saying that a garage can probably reset anyone's radio. No big deal i guess. Thanks for informing me.

So i am just stuck with waiting for now i guess. There's no good reason to reset ALL of the monitors though. If it is just the oxy sensor monitor then that will turn MUCH quicker than some of the other ones i have watched over the last year or so. You would not believe how long some of them took. I'd have to look at my notes to see which ones, but some of them take a long time. Maybe if i drove 50 miles per day it would go faster, but i dont really have to use the car that much so i hate to pile up the mileage.

The new rad only has 2 year warranty, but with the low miles i put on the car it should last forever
unless you know of a way the rad can go bad WITHOUT driving the car.

Interesting stuff, thanks again

[tryingbe]

If for emission purpose, ask the station to look up Volvo for emission exempt.

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... hp?t=62268

[MrAl]

If for emission purpose, ask the station to look up Volvo for emission exempt.

https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... hp?t=62268

Hi,

That looks like it is for PA, and i am in NJ.
Thanks though.

[abscate]

Don't ever get a BMW , Al. Those things store more latent codes than (bad joke deleted ) Volvo . I think it generates its own so that when the mark takes it to the BMW dealer, you get an 8 page printout and a $2000 work order