Volvo 2.0 Turbo

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Ddub

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May 13, 2010
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TX
Hi BITOG,

We've had a 2017 Volvo Inscription Platinum for a little less that a year now, purchased for a great price as a CPO demo with 5K miles on it.

Volvo doesn't have a specific spec like MB229.5, LL-01 etc., it recommends for this car, rather it specifies a somewhat generic 5W-30 carrying an A5/B5 designation, so the oil options are pretty varied. They recommend Castrol Professional, that's what the dealership uses (changed at 5K miles and 10K miles so far), so I know I could use Castrol Edge or Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 in a pinch and be in compliance with Volvo's A5/B5 requirements.

Doing a little research here and elsewhere, I happened onto Motul 8100 Eco Energy 5W-30. With an HTHS of 3.4, it's on the thick side for an A5/B5 oil, and carries various manufacturer specs and approvals from Ford, Renault, Jaguar, and Land Rover. I've never used it before, but I think this is going to be the oil for this car. Does anyone have any first hand experience with this oil, and/or is there anything else I should give serious consideration to? I'd prefer not to use anything too boutique, expensive, or difficult to get, and would like to stay within the manufacturer recommended grade since the car has a great extended warranty as part of the CPO program.

Side note: The oil capacity is 6.2 qts/5.9l, Volvo recommends a 10K mile OCI, but being a direct injection turbo I'm a little reluctant to go that long, so I plan to do oil changes at 5K and change the cartridge filter at 10K intervals. The car is driven less than 10K miles per year, so the frequency will be fine.

Thank you
 
I recently acquired a 2013 XC60 with the 3.0 T6. It also calls for A5/B5. The A5/B5 spec keeps evolving with the HTHS increasing. A5/B5-16 now requires HTHS >=2.9 and B4 oil and cheap at walmart or amazon. The Motul looks good on paper although it doesn't have a great pour point and no published cold pumping data. Not sure what this says about the base stock.
 
Originally Posted by GlennDa5id
The Motul looks good on paper although it doesn't have a great pour point and no published cold pumping data. Not sure what this says about the base stock.

OP is in Texas, so cold flow characteristics are of little concern to them.
 
The Motul Eco-nergy is good stuff, but so is the Castrol and any other brand name 5w30 A5/B5. It's a pretty demanding specification and Volvo have been designing their engines for medium HTHS for a long time, from back when it was A1/B1. I'd use any good A5/B5 and sleep soundly.

Off the top of my head, Liqui Moly does an oil that they claim is specially developed for modern Volvo engines - it's 0w30 and I think it's called Special Tec V. I'm sure it'll be expensive though.
 
Originally Posted by 240_Ed
The Motul Eco-nergy is good stuff, but so is the Castrol and any other brand name 5w30 A5/B5. It's a pretty demanding specification and Volvo have been designing their engines for medium HTHS for a long time, from back when it was A1/B1. I'd use any good A5/B5 and sleep soundly.

Off the top of my head, Liqui Moly does an oil that they claim is specially developed for modern Volvo engines - it's 0w30 and I think it's called Special Tec V. I'm sure it'll be expensive though.

There is no sleeping soundly with the Volvo 2.0 gas engine and the rest of car too . I for one thought they still made great cars , lol far from it , everything on a Volvo is poor . Go to the Volvo forums and take a look around . Since I would say 2000 they are junk .
 
Originally Posted by Kjmack
Originally Posted by 240_Ed
The Motul Eco-nergy is good stuff, but so is the Castrol and any other brand name 5w30 A5/B5. It's a pretty demanding specification and Volvo have been designing their engines for medium HTHS for a long time, from back when it was A1/B1. I'd use any good A5/B5 and sleep soundly.

Off the top of my head, Liqui Moly does an oil that they claim is specially developed for modern Volvo engines - it's 0w30 and I think it's called Special Tec V. I'm sure it'll be expensive though.

There is no sleeping soundly with the Volvo 2.0 gas engine and the rest of car too . I for one thought they still made great cars , lol far from it , everything on a Volvo is poor . Go to the Volvo forums and take a look around . Since I would say 2000 they are junk .


Off the intended topic, but this is an assembled in China Volvo too, so watch out! It could spontaneously combust at any moment and kill all occupants and innocent bystanders.
smile.gif
Look at any car's forums and you'll generally read about the bad news. I used to have a Cadillac DTS too. That car gave me no issues besides an easily manageable oil seep and replacing 1 front hub over 10 years, but to read the Cadillac forums you'd think I was lucky to get it out of the driveway without a catastrophic Northstar failure. So far, over 10 months and 7K miles (I know it's not much history) the Volvo has been way more dependable and trouble free (zero issues) than my brand new Ford Explorer. That's part of the reason I went with a CPO car. It effectively has a better than new bumper to bumper warranty of 7 years and/or 70K miles, and I paid about 40% less than sticker. It's a little bit of a dice roll, but one that I was willing to take.

We really like the car so far. Plenty of pep, corners way better than I thought it would (with the trade off being a little bit of a busy ride on less than great pavement), nice looking (especially with the stretched wheel base), above average if outdated interior, lots of features, and the trademark Volvo really comfortable seats. Surprisingly, we averaged 37mpg on a recent road trip too, which is better than I would have thought with average speeds between 65 and 85mph. The only thing I don't like about it so far is (and I didn't realize it until we had owned the car for a few months) that is does not have a spare tire at all, not even a donut, just an inflation kit. I don't like not having that at all, but I've only ever had 2 genuine blowouts while driving that required a side of the road change, so I am hoping that luck holds.

Speaking of junk cars, don't get me going on the '88 XJ6 and '94 Intrepid I used to own. Both drove great and were nice cars in their respective class, but talk about unreliable and trouble prone..............
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Ddub
Originally Posted by Kjmack
Originally Posted by 240_Ed
The Motul Eco-nergy is good stuff, but so is the Castrol and any other brand name 5w30 A5/B5. It's a pretty demanding specification and Volvo have been designing their engines for medium HTHS for a long time, from back when it was A1/B1. I'd use any good A5/B5 and sleep soundly.

Off the top of my head, Liqui Moly does an oil that they claim is specially developed for modern Volvo engines - it's 0w30 and I think it's called Special Tec V. I'm sure it'll be expensive though.

There is no sleeping soundly with the Volvo 2.0 gas engine and the rest of car too . I for one thought they still made great cars , lol far from it , everything on a Volvo is poor . Go to the Volvo forums and take a look around . Since I would say 2000 they are junk .


Off the intended topic, but this is an assembled in China Volvo too, so watch out! It could spontaneously combust at any moment and kill all occupants and innocent bystanders.
smile.gif
Look at any car's forums and you'll generally read about the bad news. I used to have a Cadillac DTS too. That car gave me no issues besides an easily manageable oil seep and replacing 1 front hub over 10 years, but to read the Cadillac forums you'd think I was lucky to get it out of the driveway without a catastrophic Northstar failure. So far, over 10 months and 7K miles (I know it's not much history) the Volvo has been way more dependable and trouble free (zero issues) than my brand new Ford Explorer. That's part of the reason I went with a CPO car. It effectively has a better than new bumper to bumper warranty of 7 years and/or 70K miles, and I paid about 40% less than sticker. It's a little bit of a dice roll, but one that I was willing to take.

We really like the car so far. Plenty of pep, corners way better than I thought it would (with the trade off being a little bit of a busy ride on less than great pavement), nice looking (especially with the stretched wheel base), above average if outdated interior, lots of features, and the trademark Volvo really comfortable seats. Surprisingly, we averaged 37mpg on a recent road trip too, which is better than I would have thought with average speeds between 65 and 85mph. The only thing I don't like about it so far is (and I didn't realize it until we had owned the car for a few months) that is does not have a spare tire at all, not even a donut, just an inflation kit. I don't like not having that at all, but I've only ever had 2 genuine blowouts while driving that required a side of the road change, so I am hoping that luck holds.

Speaking of junk cars, don't get me going on the '88 XJ6 and '94 Intrepid I used to own. Both drove great and were nice cars in their respective class, but talk about unreliable and trouble prone..............

Ok I hope you have luck with it . I owned a 2015.5 2.0 for 6 months . Every wonder why the resale is so cheap for Volvo's , every wonder why a 1 year old cat was wortth only 60% of new , ever wonder why you don't see many new Volvo's on the road ? I don't wonder at all anymore The new 2.0 engine had huge oil consumption issues , they claimed the fixed it model year 2015.5 , nope they didn't . 2016s with any miles on them start burning oil but Volvo claimed in mid 2015 they fixed the ring and spark plug problems . Now the higher milage 2017s are burning oil too .
Not to mention their suspensions fail very early on between 30-40k miles . You might have a fluke on your hands and it holds up . I hope you really do have luck with it . Dont take my post as a personal attack , its not meant to be that way .
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Ddub
Hi BITOG,

We've had a 2017 Volvo Inscription Platinum for a little less that a year now, purchased for a great price as a CPO demo with 5K miles on it.

Volvo doesn't have a specific spec like MB229.5, LL-01 etc., it recommends for this car, rather it specifies a somewhat generic 5W-30 carrying an A5/B5 designation, so the oil options are pretty varied. They recommend Castrol Professional, that's what the dealership uses (changed at 5K miles and 10K miles so far), so I know I could use Castrol Edge or Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30 in a pinch and be in compliance with Volvo's A5/B5 requirements.

Doing a little research here and elsewhere, I happened onto Motul 8100 Eco Energy 5W-30. With an HTHS of 3.4, it's on the thick side for an A5/B5 oil, and carries various manufacturer specs and approvals from Ford, Renault, Jaguar, and Land Rover. I've never used it before, but I think this is going to be the oil for this car. Does anyone have any first hand experience with this oil, and/or is there anything else I should give serious consideration to? I'd prefer not to use anything too boutique, expensive, or difficult to get, and would like to stay within the manufacturer recommended grade since the car has a great extended warranty as part of the CPO program.

Side note: The oil capacity is 6.2 qts/5.9l, Volvo recommends a 10K mile OCI, but being a direct injection turbo I'm a little reluctant to go that long, so I plan to do oil changes at 5K and change the cartridge filter at 10K intervals. The car is driven less than 10K miles per year, so the frequency will be fine.

Thank you


If you go over to the Volvo forums (SwedeSpeed specifically), you will find many issues with "pinging" for this engine. After octane level changes (from 87 to 93 octane Top Tier), spark plug changes (colder plugs), a PCV valve redesign and new ECU tuning from Volvo, none really fixed the issue and some have have had to have their pistons replaced from damage it caused. Volvo then recommended a specific oil formulation that seems to have fixed it along with all the other recommendations/TSBs/updates. This has been happening on the dual super and turbo charged T6 2.0L engine (seems like a great engine) for over two years now. The switch was to Castrol Edge Pro V 0W-20. Regardless, I'd keep the OCI to 5K miles.

https://forums.swedespeed.com/showt...en-accelerating&highlight=T6+pinging

I used to own a 2007 S80 3.2L (218K miles) and was still a very good driving, reliable car (just too long in the tooth for me).
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by WhizkidTN

This has been happening on the dual super and turbo charged T6 2.0L engine (seems like a great engine) for over two years now.

"Seems like" and "actually" are two totally different things sadly. Just when you thought a used Turbo charged VOlvo was risky, they go and add a super charger to the mix!
You just can't make this stuff up!
lol.gif


Originally Posted by WhizkidTN

I used to own a 2007 S80 3.2L (218K miles) and was still a very good driving, reliable car (just too long in the tooth for me).

Only reason why it was reliable is the lack of forced induction.
Too bad Volvo (in their infinite wisdom) have dropped all NA engines which were all relatively reliable (except for the finicky PCV systems).


The only thing Volvo is interested in these days is new car sales. They've taken a page from the book of Apple on marketing and haven't looked back!
When you think of it in the big picture, it's actually kinda smart. Nobody wants to own a vehicle past 2 or 3 years.
Given the rate at which in-car technology becomes obsolete (remember Nav systems from the mid 00's?) the car becomes anything but desirable to anyone with a smart phone.
 
Originally Posted by Lolvoguy
Originally Posted by WhizkidTN

This has been happening on the dual super and turbo charged T6 2.0L engine (seems like a great engine) for over two years now.

"Seems like" and "actually" are two totally different things sadly. Just when you thought a used Turbo charged VOlvo was risky, they go and add a super charger to the mix!
You just can't make this stuff up!
lol.gif


Originally Posted by WhizkidTN

I used to own a 2007 S80 3.2L (218K miles) and was still a very good driving, reliable car (just too long in the tooth for me).

Only reason why it was reliable is the lack of forced induction.
Too bad Volvo (in their infinite wisdom) have dropped all NA engines which were all relatively reliable (except for the finicky PCV systems).


The only thing Volvo is interested in these days is new car sales. They've taken a page from the book of Apple on marketing and haven't looked back!
When you think of it in the big picture, it's actually kinda smart. Nobody wants to own a vehicle past 2 or 3 years.
Given the rate at which in-car technology becomes obsolete (remember Nav systems from the mid 00's?) the car becomes anything but desirable to anyone with a smart phone.
Here on BITOG I'd say the average age of vehicles seems to be 10 or more years old .
 
If you go over to the Volvo forums (SwedeSpeed specifically), you will find many issues with "pinging" for this engine. After octane level changes (from 87 to 93 octane Top Tier), spark plug changes (colder plugs), a PCV valve redesign and new ECU tuning from Volvo, none really fixed the issue and some have have had to have their pistons replaced from damage it caused. Volvo then recommended a specific oil formulation that seems to have fixed it along with all the other recommendations/TSBs/updates. This has been happening on the dual super and turbo charged T6 2.0L engine (seems like a great engine) for over two years now. The switch was to Castrol Edge Pro V 0W-20. Regardless, I'd keep the OCI to 5K miles.

https://forums.swedespeed.com/showt...en-accelerating&highlight=T6+pinging

I used to own a 2007 S80 3.2L (218K miles) and was still a very good driving, reliable car (just too long in the tooth for me).
[/quote]



Hmm, interesting. Thanks for sharing. I went over to the SwedeSpeed forum, and part of the "fix" is a specially formulated Castrol 0W-20. So Volvo is actually going thinner than their originally recommended A5/B5 5W-30 oil (the other part was a software upgrade of some type). With almost 12K miles on the odometer and 2 free dealer oil changes at 5K and 10K (I'm almost certain they are using Castrol Professional 5W-30) ours has not experienced any of the pinging or related issues.
 
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Assuming you have the later 2.0 4 cylinder Volvo Engine Architecture engine, then I thought the only oil specified is RSBO-2AE. Is it different for the US? I'd like to use something thicker and cheaper in mine but a bit nervous with the variable oil pump & variable timing. If the US lets you use heavier oils then maybe I'd be a bit more relaxed about giving it ago.
 
Originally Posted by Bailes1992
Assuming you have the later 2.0 4 cylinder Volvo Engine Architecture engine, then I thought the only oil specified is RSBO-2AE. Is it different for the US? I'd like to use something thicker and cheaper in mine but a bit nervous with the variable oil pump & variable timing. If the US lets you use heavier oils then maybe I'd be a bit more relaxed about giving it ago.


I am just learning of the newer RSBO-2AE spec you mentioned. Mine is a 2017 gasoline DI 2.0l turbo, but not supercharged. The way I understand it, the new spec is/was for the Drive-E engines, which mine is an updated version of. What I don't know is if the new spec 0W-20 oil is being recommended/required for all Volvos with that engine or just the ones experiencing the pinging issues. I'll ask the service manager at the Volvo dealership next time it's in for something. So far, ours has not had any issues. If I want to use the new spec oil, it looks like Motul and Liqui Moly make one. Castrol does to, but from what I can tell it is only available at Volvo dealerships currently, and some people on the Swede Speed forum are reporting that the dealers are reluctant to sell it unless they are getting oil changes at the dealership.

If ours continues with no issues I may stay on the A5/B5 Castrol Edge 5W-30, or go to the also A5/B5 Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30. I'll steer clear of the thicker A5/B5 oils since Volvo's new recommendations are actually for a thinner oil. I'm not sure what the SAPS are for any of these oils, but I am guessing staying with an A5/B5 that is also SN+ would be advisable if I don't want or have to use the new spec 0W-20 oil.
 
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