Now here’s the good news, Volvo has some of the lowest priced hybrid components on the market for what they are. So that’s a huge plus. Volvo is a leader in that category just like they are a leader in reliability or safety. The batteries in these cars too I have to say are right under $9k for the part and then if you know how to do the installation at home or if you can, then you can save the labor. 9k is actually a very competitive price for a battery in all honesty and I am pretty sure that these batteries might actually be going down in price because I thought I may have saw some for like $7k new from Volvo but don’t quote me. So that is absolutely an incredible amount of voltage and power for the dollar. Now not saying the batteries go on these because they don’t, I am just saying that if it does that it is cost effective and competitive in terms of what the cost is to repair.
The ERAD you can get new from Volvo for like right under 2k for the part, which is another incredible value too for how powerful they are. That’s a really good deal for a part with that amount much sophistication and power like that. I actually don’t even know how Volvo prices them that low like that. These are also very reliable too especially now that they have updated them so the odds of you running into that I would say are lower.
HVCH is right around $1,500 which is kind of strange to me that the heater is only $500 less than the ERAD unit, that’s the only part that’s kind of weird. So not a complete bargain for a heater BUT if you are shopping Black Friday or whatever for example you may be able to pick one of these high voltage heaters for maybe $1,000 so for that price it’s much more reasonable. In all honesty too I wouldn’t be against keeping one in a bedroom toolbox or something similar just to have one. The high voltage coolant heaters are nice to keep around.
The 2 piece front rotors should last longer in general but on a hybrid probably a very long time. I have seen guys post about getting sometimes 60-70k miles out of a set of GiroDisc 2 piece rotors, driving conservatively in a AMG Mercedes with no hybrid or regen. It just depends on how hard the rotors are.
Then honestly too the other thing I really love about Volvos is when you need to repair something, the instructions and repair manuals are just so elegantly written. They are straightforward, there’s not a lot of unnecessary words being used and it’s just simple and easy to understand with great illustrations. Volvo does an absolutely wonderful job illustrating and giving out instructions. They are just wonderful to have and you can find them posted sometimes. My suggestion is that when you find them just save them on your computer see you have them because threads can get closed and all kinds of weird stuff can happen. So what I do is I just download all of these instructions and then when I need them I just pull them up on my TV or go to the library and print them. Then I review it and take it with me and basically just do what it says. That’s what I absolutely love about Volvo. It’s just a streamlined process when comes to giving out directions. And if you have VIDA then it’s going to really help you with repairs.