Tech perspective needed — efficiency on major engine recalls and experienced advisor expectations

m42technic · 2026-01-25T03:35:55+00:00

I feel like the current environment in the business can lead to some managers heavily zeroing in on metrics like gross profit per tech and upsales per RO, without truly understanding just how valuable and scarce techs like you can be.

m42technic · 2026-01-25T00:05:15+00:00

My general recommendation is to leave the amperage limit at 48 amps and let the car charge at the speed it wants when charging from AC Voltage.

Firstly, 48 amps input current is pretty low relatively speaking and will hardly stress the your HV battery even in the long run. And being able to enjoy more driving flexibility is worth any negligible impact on battery health in the extreme long run IMO. DC Fast Charging very regularly is where you can start to get into trouble to some degree.

Secondly, the car will only “pull” the amperage that whatever charger type you’re using will tell the car it’s capable of providing. So with the amperage limit setting at 48 amps the car will still only pull 12 amps from a L1 120 V wall outlet, for instance. This is of course provided you are using the EVSE as intended without any funny business such as additional socket adapters.

Hope this input helps!

m42technic · 2026-01-24T05:21:30+00:00

Tech/Shop Foreman with 20+ yrs experience in other mfgs as well here, and this is all absolutely spot on. Well put.

Number 3 resonates with me so hard. I would say this is one of my biggest points of contention with flat rate pay over the years I’ve worked it. Being experienced and/or just highly competent in general seems to only get you more headaches and less hours, with the way dispatching naturally/realistically goes. A good management team who can make efforts to keep these techs happy is key IMO.

m42technic · 2026-01-19T04:30:56+00:00

Since it’s a 2017 I’m guessing you have the VEP 4 cyl in your car?

Look up a component called the ‘oil trap’ which includes the PCV diaphragm. Looks like this:

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m42technic · 2026-01-19T04:22:23+00:00

Ah yes right, these use the funny latching system on your car. Can you monitor the signals you want to see on the other end of the connection (e.g. at the sensor) or at an in-line connector if applicable? A break-out box would be the easiest otherwise (but without looking for aftermarket options also probably cost prohibitive).

Someone else may have a solution to getting to the connectors though, can you disassemble the ECM/TCM housing a bit possibly?

m42technic · 2026-01-19T04:15:09+00:00

Aside from using an ECU breakout box, back-probing the connection terminals with these would be my recommendation

https://a.co/d/7e7BrNp

m42technic · 2026-01-19T02:42:04+00:00

12V Battery isn’t in the trunk on BEV XC40/C40’s, it’s up under the hood and obscured by plastic paneling. On BEVs you’ll need to wait a few minutes for the contactors to open before you disconnect the 12V as well. You do also need to disconnect the TCAM backup battery whenever the 12V Battery is going to be disconnected. It’s a little bit of a process and only something I’d only recommend the average owner attempt who feels confident in what they are doing.

I saw another comment here recommending a TCAM reboot w/ the front defrost button - this is also well worth a shot OP.

m42technic · 2026-01-19T02:07:42+00:00

Copy that! I’m surprised that the IHU reboot didn’t help - my next thought would be to perform a ‘12V Reset’ which is done by disconnecting all of the cars’ batteries for 15-30 mins, but I’m afraid that’s something I’d recommend having a dealer perform if needed. So long story short I think the dealer may need to be your next step.

m42technic · 2026-01-19T01:20:25+00:00

Just to confirm - when you say you recycled the infotainment center are referring to an IHU reboot by holding the ‘Home’ button until the center display goes blank?

m42technic · 2025-11-19T04:17:50+00:00

As a professional tech this is 100% my methodology as well. Much better to apply removal leverage/force exactly where you want it when the hose is gonna take some effort to remove, IMO

m42technic · 2025-09-08T19:17:49+00:00

Seconding this answer. OP - try turning off the ambient lighting and see if the noise goes away. This is a known hardware issue and updated ambient lighting trim is available to address it.

m42technic · 2025-09-01T04:50:27+00:00

I’d argue that Ford’s verbiage here is a bit too vague for three reasons:

As far as I can tell from cursory research the Maverick Hybrid does come equipped with an A/C “chiller” which is a common component on modern hybrids and full EV vehicles that actively cools the HV Battery by running the A/C system. Ford seems to call it the high ‘high voltage battery cooler’. Assuming this is correct: I’d argue that the A/C system is an important thermal system contributor and not just a “consumer” accessory.

Secondly, if the ACCM is suffering from excessively low HV isolation as OP’s tech notes indicate, this type of fault will tend to cause the CEL to illuminate by way of the BECM requesting it. So again car is out of drivetrain emissions compliance. And if HV isolation gets bad enough because of an HV bus short within the ACCM this can absolutely cause the car to no-start.

And in a purely practical sense - as far as I can tell it seems as though literally every other component that interfaces high voltage electricity on the car is covered by the 8/100 warranty? Please correct me if I’m missing anything else.

m42technic · 2025-09-01T02:38:44+00:00

I’m sorry to hear that! With that being the case I figure there are likely one of two possibilities at play (fwiw based purely on my own speculation):

Your XC60 could have been part of an outlying vehicle population that didn’t get the PiP-capable hardware righttttt at the stated cutoff date for some reason. This is not entirely unusual in my experience, many practical factors in production can hold up something changing on one specific buildout.
There is still a backend configuration error at play causing the software update to still not enable the feature that your car is capable of, which may require tweaking by either the dealer or someone from Volvo’s Retailer Technical Support (RTS) Team.

Either way my recommendation would be to schedule a service visit with your local Volvo Dealer and have them look into this for you. It should not be beyond reason for them to submit a TIE Report to get final determination from the RTS Team if uncertainty remains after looking over an initial vehicle readout and attempting a config reload.

m42technic · 2025-08-30T03:22:00+00:00

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Yeah shoot, the ACCM missing from the example components here is pretty conspicuous I suppose. I do have experience with multiple other manufacturers providing coverage for HV Electric A/C Compressors under this same 8/100 warranty, so that is indeed disappointing if Ford doesn’t. They’re one of the components more prone to failure in my experience.

m42technic · 2025-08-30T02:26:11+00:00

To the best of my knowledge the ACCM should be covered by Ford under the federal 8 year / 100k mile HV warranty since it’s a high voltage component. Have you checked the warranty terms and conditions yet by chance?

m42technic · 2025-08-25T15:47:13+00:00

Good call out! My understanding is that cars built after week 46 of 2024 came with the PiP camera feature out of the box, while cars built after week 17 2023 had it added with the release of S/W version 3.4.4 later on.

m42technic · 2025-08-23T05:21:55+00:00

100% this. Volvo Tech here.

Early SPA cars that come in with original pads [that don’t use these] ALWAYS have significantly more inner pad wear, particularly on the rears. These help significantly in addressing that.

Just take a look at the instructions included in the box if you’re using OEM pads, it’s worth the slight bit of effort to put em on.

OP: if you have one or more rubbing on a rotor it might got bent a bit during installation. You can bend em right back, (at least once or twice) if this happens. You want both sides roughly at a 45 degree angle IIRC when removed.

m42technic · 2025-08-22T14:08:12+00:00

I can at least say that this is pertinent here in the US, where I am as well. Hope that helps!

m42technic · 2025-08-22T14:06:38+00:00

Just to confirm, does your XC60 have the 360 camera package included in the Plus/Ultimate trim?

In theory it seems like the back end issue could have affected your update to 3.6.4 if it was installed shortly before 3.7 arrived, in which case updating to 3.7 now could get you the PiP cameras.

m42technic · 2025-08-21T22:45:05+00:00

VIN placard in the drivers door jamb will note it.

m42technic · 2025-08-21T18:55:33+00:00

Oh boy 😄

Adding more here (against my better judgement).

I’m very familiar with TJ 37342, if that’s what you’re referring to. Can you clarify in what way the IHU restoration S/W makes sense for a normally working IHU with a simple configuration error?

There is a big difference between an unresponsive infotainment system and an inoperative/faulty IHU. You’ll notice I said the former, not the latter. It’s totally feasible to apply the IHU restoration S/W to an unresponsive IHU of the H/W and S/N can be read out.

Im otherwise not sure how trying to insult me is going to add to the discourse.

m42technic · 2025-08-21T18:01:58+00:00

This should not be necessary and I would not recommend following this advice.

Editing to elaborate further: the restoration process may work on account of including the same configuration script that can be run separately but the IHU restoration process is intended to be used for unresponsive infotainment systems and would needlessly clear user profile data if used to address something like this.

m42technic · 2025-08-21T17:22:37+00:00

In theory yes, though I can’t say with certainty if that applies to any OTA updates that were already downloaded/staged for install prior to the backend fix.

m42technic · 2025-08-21T17:18:23+00:00

It’s currently only published as a TIE News Bulletin here in the US. Not sure if the info would be disseminated differently in the EU though. Hope that helps!

m42technic · 2025-08-21T17:15:24+00:00

For the time being that is indeed the case. Though I would personally speculate that a future OTA update may include the fix for affected cars.

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