Lessons from Vacation: An Open Letter to Volvo

Dear Volvo

I firmly believe you should stop claiming to be the world’s safest car company.

This spring, my wife’s 2006 XC90 needed to have the engine replaced due to bad cylinders. While a little “young” to experience this problem (around 70,000 miles), it’s understandable: these things happen (and it was still under the warranty we purchased at acquisition, so the $10,000 engine replacement was “on the house”).

After having the Volvo back for a couple of weeks, we took it on vacation out to Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota. It performed fine across Nebraska and through Colorado and Wyoming, but by the time we hit the Black Hills of South Dakota, there was an obvious performance issue with the engine. We ended up renting a car to make it through the last day of our vacation plans.

That night, I took it to an AutoZone in Rapid City, SD where they diagnosed two of our ignition coils were bad. They only had one in stock and replaced it, and we were able to get home (but not without a lot of noise and vibration from under the hood). I promptly took it back to the dealer. Yesterday, I received a call from the dealership. They invited me back to the shop to look at the engine block. It turns out the root cause of the problem was your technicians had put the wrong spark plugs into our newly replaced motor. Instead of the plugs for a 2006 XC90, you installed plugs for a 2009 S60. (Just to be clear, the engine came this way from Volvo, and this error was not made at the dealership who installed it.) Regardless, an engine head replacement is in the works.

To say it’s a miracle we made it home in one piece from that vacation is an understatement. I shudder to think of the things that could have happened to the motor as well as the places where those things could have happened. The dealership is equally concerned about your lack of oversight.

This was a clumsy error at best. We purchased the Volvo XC90 because of Volvo’s stellar reputation as a safe vehicle. After experiencing the quality (or lack thereof) of our first Volvo, I firmly believe it will be our LAST Volvo as well. You have undermined your brand promise of safety. Putting a damper on the last couple of days of our family vacation is the least of my concerns; you compromised the safety and well-being of my family.

I’m guessing some corporate drone in your public relations or social media department will see this and laugh... or ignore it. It probably won’t go viral among the “mommy bloggers” or the “social media darlings”… but it will continue to make an impression in our lives. The XC90 is being fixed. Within the next few months, it will be traded (definitely for a different brand). But the memory of this experience will live on.

Respectfully Submitted

Timothy L Johnson