2017 Volvo S90 Coolant Leak

Hi, it's Mark.

I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, Vancouver's best auto service

experience.

25 times voted best auto repair in Vancouver by their customers.

And we're talking cars.

How are you doing, Bernie?

Doing very well.

So today's guest is a 2017 Volvo S90.

This is a bit of a luxury car.

What was going on with this vehicle?

Yeah, it was a beautiful car.

The owner called up, I've got some coolant leaking out of my engine I needed fixed.

So brought the vehicle to us, I believe on a tow truck, and we proceeded to do a diagnostic

to find out where the coolant was leaking.

So was there any particular reason why it was towed in?

The car didn't run anymore or it just was scared?

It was worried it was overheat, which is smart.

It was a pretty active drip.

And when we did our diagnosis, a cooling system pressure test is what we do to find

the leak.

But in this case, no pressure test was needed because as you poured the coolant

in, it would just pour out pretty much just as fast.

There's a big hole somewhere.

Yeah, there's a big hole, a very active leak.

All right, let's have a look at our vehicle here.

Our guest, beautiful 2017 Volvo.

So we're going to jump here.

Well, this is the engine compartment with the beautiful plastic engine cover on top.

It's a two liter turbo.

Four cylinder.

Four cylinder, yeah.

That seems to be very common in Volvo's over the last maybe decade, I guess we're

almost a decade.

The six cylinders and five cylinders that were common in the past seem to be disappearing

into the four cylinder turbo models, which is good, more efficient use of power for sure.

And this arrow is pointing to our hose that was the culprit of the coolant.

Like this is a plastic coolant pipe.

It's called a bypass pipe or a bleed pipe.

It basically bleeds air, excess air out of the cooling system into the overflow bottle.

And it makes a bunch of twists and turns through the engine compartment, connects

up to another little plastic pipe that runs under the cowl.

And basically the pipe just broke apart where it was joined in one spot.

So was it leaking right where the arrow was showing?

It was leaking actually further up, but where you're moving your most pointer

kind of actually underneath, yeah, beyond what you can see there is where it was leaking.

I didn't take a picture of the actual broken pipe afterwards, but that's usually

kind of a view of the pipe and from a different angle.

And it runs under that air duct, which is a big round rubber piece thing here

runs underneath there, wraps around a bunch of different spots

and then goes to where your most pointer here goes right there.

It's got nice little twists and curves.

These things are highly manufactured.

You know, they're just molded and shaped to fit all the little nuances

of the engine compartment.

But you know, the story for me around the stuff is it's overly complicated,

not very durable.

And when you go to change it, they're snapped together clips,

but they don't come apart very easily.

Putting it together is easy.

You just click snap, but taking it apart.

A lot of times the plastic will break off or it'll get stuck

and you have to be very careful

so you don't break the other end of the pipe as you take it apart.

So they tend to kind of sort of glue themselves together over time.

So was this a fairly complicated repair?

Took a couple hours at least, you know, maybe a little longer.

There was a lot of things to remove just to get at the pipe.

And then the pipe as we took it off of one end,

it actually broke off inside another coolant pipe.

So we had to change two pipes.

And this is very typical.

And is that a result of the plastic or the design or both?

Yeah, there's a bit of a result of both.

But I don't know if there's a way, you know,

that you can use things like on metal like never sees

when you put bolts or assemble parts where over time

as it rusts and corrodes, you could take that thing apart

because the never sees provides a barrier.

But with plastic, there's not much you can do,

nor would they even bother at the factory.

They just want to snap it together

and blast it out the door as fast as they can.

And why not?

You know, they're in the business to make money,

manufacturing cars and selling them.

Well, there is a design and engineering issue

as far as, hey, is this repairable or not?

And I think a lot of companies make the decision

that we don't care.

Yeah.

Is that fair?

Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, the thing that's disappointing

that I find is over the years at some point,

this hose will break, this pipe will break.

And if you call up the Volvo dealer,

it's where we get the pipe obsolete.

And then what do you do with, you know,

a car that's perfectly functional in every other way?

It's like you have an obsolete pipe.

There's probably things you could do to workarounds,

but they're going to be like at some point,

it just gets to like scrap the car, right?

Hopefully they'll keep the parts going for 20 years.

I mean, to me, a 20-year-old car is a pretty good run.

But you're not going to see someone restoring this car

in, you know, 50 years from now.

I'll see one of these cars driving up.

It'll be customized in some way and eliminate this part

or change it or make something else.

Yeah.

But, you know, it's just a general complexity of cars.

They work fantastic.

But, you know, there's a certain shelf life to them.

Yeah.

If you're looking for service for your Volvo

in Vancouver, BC, Canada, the guys

to see are Pawlik Automotive.

You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com.

We have hundreds of videos on there,

all makes and models and types of repairs.

Check it out.

Or you can call 604-327-7112 to book your appointment.

You have to book ahead.

They're always busy.

Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver.

Thanks so much for watching and listening.

And thanks, Bernie.

Thank you, Mark.

Thanks for watching and listening.

2017 Volvo S90 Coolant Leak

Volvo S90

About this episode