[WxMan]

A few weeks ago I had a plug installed in my garage so I could charge using the supplied Volvo cable. On my centre display the max charge was set to 90% and max amperage was set to 32. The very first time I plugged in the charge cable the driver's display indicated that the max charge was set to 100% and that the vehicle was charging at 39amps, which appears to be the max of the cable, and is also not appropriate for my 40amp breaker. I stopped the charge and tried to change settings on the centre display, but each time I started the charge again I got the same result. There seemed to be no communication between the centre display settings and what was actually happening on the driver's display. After several attempts I locked the car and left it alone for about half an hour. When I came back and tried it it worked properly.

About a week later I was due for another charge and sure enough, the same issue. I tried all the same remedies. The half an hour nap did not fix the issue this time. Fortunately this time it wasn't trying to charge at 39amps, but it was still going above the 32amps that I had set at times and was going to charge to 100%. It was late in the evening and I couldn't let it charge overnight because I didn't want it to go to 100% and I didn't trust it to stay at or below 32amps. I ended up leaving it overnight and then tried again in the morning, at which time it had then decided to work properly and any changes I made to the centre display charge settings were reflected in the driver's display.

In this image you can see that the centre display settings aren't reflected in the driver's display. Also, where it shows the charging amps, it shows a zero where the max amps should be. Also, I had set the max amps to 30 to show that whatever I set was being ignored.

Has anyone else noticed this issue?

 

[Yudasor]

we’ve also had this issue, and a similar issue where the vehicle charges at a mere 6 amps (with us being unable to increase the charging rate in the settings). The only solution we’ve found is to turn the vehicle off, lock it and leave it for while, and then hope it works when you come back (which it has for us on all but one occasion).

 

[SeattleCat]

Had that problem came up with the below.

Magic techniques to be used when as a character in a book I love says ”weird bollocks happens”. After each technique below try the thing that had gone wrong. If it still fails please proceeding to the next
1. Exit vehicle. Lock Car. Visualize it switching off. Get back in and turn it on and Test problemish.
2. Reboot the computer by holding down the home key (big key center bottom of the display) for 20 seconds. After the Computer reboots, give it a few second to fully boot up. Now test It.
3. Exit vehicle. Lock Car. Visualize it switching off. Now walk away from the car, walk at least 30 feet from the car. (WARNING) make sure nobody else is close and that there are no other keys in the car. Wait 2 minutes (I will scientifically work on the needed wait time at some point). Now return to the car WITH ONLY ONE KEY. Open door, get in, switch it on and test the problem.
4. Do (3) BUT return to the car with a different key. Make sure all other keys stay away from the car unit you are finished. In this case if it works, make sure that you test it later with the original key.

Took number 4 to fix it last time it happened.

 

[WxMan]

Thanks. That list might as well be a sticky, although I think we will all be pretty familiar with it after just a few weeks with our new P8's. Perhaps Volvo should have a similar type list in a troubleshooting section of their owner's manual.

 

[westmo]

To add to the list from @SeattleCat, I thought I'd read in another thread that you can reset the modem by pressing and holding down the Defrost button for 30 seconds? I'm not sure how/why that wouldn't be part of the reset in #2 (and I have not tested this) ... but I thought I'd recalled someone else mentioning that as a troubleshooting step.

 

[WxMan]

To add to the list from @SeattleCat, I thought I'd read in another thread that you can reset the modem by pressing and holding down the Defrost button for 30 seconds? I'm not sure how/why that wouldn't be part of the reset in #2 (and I have not tested this) ... but I thought I'd recalled someone else mentioning that as a troubleshooting step.

Yes, that is also a useful troubleshooting tip to know. I had to use that to fix my "searching for GPS" problem. The modem reset does seem to be separate from restarting the infotainment as you say.

 

[SeattleCat]

Yes you can reset the gps. I felt wrong adding it as this was my magic list and cough I also senior momented the gps reset as well

I should add the gps reset and I suppose a go to dealer and have them reset and wipe everything at the end … but that last does not seem very magic

 

[WxMan]

I'm having this charging problem yet again. I charge about once a week and so far this has been an issue three out of four times I've needed a charge. The first time it resolved itself after a few hours. The second time it took overnight. This time I am still unable to get it charging properly after about 14 hours of trying on and off. I have tried all the known voodoo, but nothing has worked this time. I will be in touch with the dealer tomorrow even though I have no faith that they will have any clue how to address it. Knowing my luck it will work perfectly when I deliver it to them.

 

[SeattleCat]

Sorry to here this wx

Are you changing the charging lvls at all?
Playing with voc?
Doing anything consistent between any of the 4 times that it happened ?

 

[WxMan]

Thanks Cat.

I generally leave the max charge setting at 90% and 32 amps, but I have tried changing it several times when it is misbehaving and saying set to charge to 100%. Those changes show on the centre screen but are not reflected on the driver's display and as far as I can tell don't change what is actually happening. I can drop the max amps down well below 32, but the active charging will happily stay well above what I set it at.

I haven't been able to play with VOC yet because the dealer still has my orange key. I was told when I purchased the vehicle that they were keeping all their customer's orange keys until Volvo has sorted out the issues with them.

All I've been doing between charges is just normal use of the vehicle. I can't think of anything I am doing that would have an effect one way or the other.

I'm charging the car now and checking on it a few times per hour to make sure the amps are staying at a reasonable number and will stop it before it get's past 90%. So far today it is staying near 32amps, but the first time this happened it was up near 39amps, which is not a good for my 40amp circuit.

It's very frustrating. I've got better things to do with my time than babysit my charging car.

 

[SeattleCat]

So it is changing its max charge to 100 on its own?

1. Does this self change occur before every failure?
2. Have you had a self change and it worked?
3. Have you had a fail with the max remaining as you had previously set it?

Do you charge anywhere else or use dc charging?

 

[WxMan]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a failure. It charges, until I stop it, but doesn't register any max amp setting that I input and wants to go to 100% despite being set otherwise. If you squint hard at the photo I posted you'll see the driver's display say "Limit set to 100%", but clearly on the centre display I have the charge limit set to 90%.

I noticed from the first charge I did that this was happening so I have never let it go unsupervised with this glitch so I haven't let it go past 90%. The first time this happened I left it alone and came back about an hour and a half later and started it charging again and it worked properly. The second time the car needed a charge I had the same problem, but had to leave it overnight before I could start a charge with no problems. This last time I have been unable to start a charge without the problem.

A few days after my last charge I plugged it in just to see if the problem was back. I was about 75% SOC at the time and the charge started without the problem.

Last time I tried switching the cable adapter and charging at 110V to see if that made any difference, but it did not. Still said charging to 100% no matter what I had set. I have not tried DC charging the car yet.

 

[SeattleCat]

Sorry I am being of little help. All my charging experience is with public chargers and I just leave the amps set to 48 and more often use level 3 not 2.

 

[WxMan]

No problem. If I get anywhere with the dealer, I will post the results here.

 

[John M]

No problem. If I get anywhere with the dealer, I will post the results here.

So did this problem ever get solved?

 

[WxMan]

Sorry for the late reply. I was out of contact for a while.

I didn’t end up going to the dealer as the problem rectified itself after another day and getting to the dealer is very inconvenient. I then tried starting a charge at home each day just to see if it was still going to work properly and it was fine for the week. Then I left on a camping trip in my truck. Since returning home I have been driving my P8 but haven’t needed to charge it yet.

 

[SeattleCat]

Car just needed to get to know you …

There a few crashes that seem to happen to almost everyone when they first get the P8 then they go away and rarely return …

 

[He Keith]

Car just needed to get to know you …

There a few crashes that seem to happen to almost everyone when they first get the P8 then they go away and rarely return …

I hope so.

 

[SeattleCat]

It almost feels like the factory reset / initial presentation has not allowed all the modules to interact / go through a boot cycle. Once this happens and they come back up in the “right” order barring physical error they tend to work.

Of course like all systems I am sure their are software leaks/ errors that build up causing instability that occasional needs for reboot. These are like in most systems semi random. As in you can have it be stable for 2 months of hard use or get twitchy in a week.

This is not Volvo’s fault but the nature of imperfectly written code. Perfectly written code being a myth in anything with any complexity. All games / programs / os’s have bugs. Every new release of software introduces new problems but hopefully fixes some of the old. This is the way it is and is also why aircraft computers are really old and have been worked on for stability for a long time. Also why some systems have 3 or 4 way redundancy.

It should also be noted that almost all of the problems we are having with software are cosmetic. They are not the car crashing/exploding/losing control. Yes it is horrible to have our gps going down but we all have a back up gps in our phones. The software will get more stable but it will never be 100% stable in the infotainment area. I am amazed they got it so right in the critical systems section!!!

Good luck with getting everything fixed.

 

[Paul1117]

It almost feels like the factory reset / initial presentation has not allowed all the modules to interact / go through a boot cycle. Once this happens and they come back up in the “right” order barring physical error they tend to work.

Of course like all systems I am sure their are software leaks/ errors that build up causing instability that occasional needs for reboot. These are like in most systems semi random. As in you can have it be stable for 2 months of hard use or get twitchy in a week.

This is not Volvo’s fault but the nature of imperfectly written code. Perfectly written code being a myth in anything with any complexity. All games / programs / os’s have bugs. Every new release of software introduces new problems but hopefully fixes some of the old. This is the way it is and is also why aircraft computers are really old and have been worked on for stability for a long time. Also why some systems have 3 or 4 way redundancy.

It should also be noted that almost all of the problems we are having with software are cosmetic. They are not the car crashing/exploding/losing control. Yes it is horrible to have our gps going down but we all have a back up gps in our phones. The software will get more stable but it will never be 100% stable in the infotainment area. I am amazed they got it so right in the critical systems section!!!

Good luck with getting everything fixed.

What about the inability to distribute over the air software updates? Is that not Volvo’s fault either?