2007 Volvo S60 2.5T Automatic
I just had an alignment done on the car, and they also changed control arms and sway bar end links. Everything up front was pretty sloppy and knocking around.
Maybe related, maybe not: since the service I’ve been getting a ‘service traction control system’ message, but that’s happened to me a few years back… I changed the steering wheel position sensor back then and it went away. Might be a coincidence. But that happened as soon as I picked up the car, before I even left the lot, so I popped back in and they scanned it, cycled the ABS, got it to go away, it came back, it went away… it’s intermittent. They admitted that they were limited in what they can do with Volvos bc they don’t have the VIDA system.
The meat of the issue: I got the car back on Tuesday. Yesterday (Wednesday) I was driving the car to do an oil change at my father’s house (he has a lift in his garage) and got that brake failure message. In addition to the message, the Coolant Temp, Speedo, and Tach all dropped to zero (while still driving), the instantaneous MPG and trip odo all became dashes, the regular odometer stopped ticking over, and the gear indicator dashed out as well. Shifting between P D and R was very firm, much firmer than normal with audible clunking.
Braking seems normal despite the message.
I did the oil change, drove back home, and all was fine. Everything was back to normal. Well, the traction control light came on but went off when I turned out of the driveway. Again, it’s intermittent so I’m thinking it’s the steering wheel position sensor again.
I was driving to work this morning and the both of the messages came back, with the same symptoms. But this time I was in stop-and-go traffic and noticed that the transmission wouldn’t shift on its own. It was fine before the brake message. But I noticed this because when I came to a stop, and started accelerating again, there was a lot of trans slippage. So it was still in 4th (or 5th, whatever the top gear of the auto is) gear. Next time I stopped I shifted to L and was able to accelerate normally. But I did pull over and restart the car. The message was gone on start up but came on again, apparently in 3rd gear because I was stuck in that gear for the rest of the drive. Manually shifting down to 3 had no change in sound (remember, the tach is at zero!) so I determined that 3rd was the gear I was in.
So that’s a lot of information, but that’s what I have going on. I’m thinking that maybe an ABS sensor got knocked loose or broken, but why would the brake error cause all the gauges to drop to zero? But that would also explain the traction control issue.
Or it could be the steering wheel position sensor for the traction control issue, and maybe the brake pedal position sensor for the brake issue? I’ve gone through two of those already over the last couple of years.
Or maybe the problem is something bigger. I’m on the road for work right now and will make an appointment with a Volvo mechanic when I get back, but until then I’ve got nothing better to do than read up on this.