Back in October of ’23, I purchased a 2012 XC70 T6, drove it home about 300 miles, and have loved it ever since I bought it.
After some time getting used to her, there were a couple of concerns I had (a strange noise, another key and some other questions), so I took the car to the local dealer. The noise was related to the PCV breather box and also the transmission (which is not currently too bad, but will be replaced before I loose my 5-year warranty). At this time I also asked about getting the maps updated, as it appears they may have been the original ones shipped with the car. The dealer said that they could, but it would require a ticket to be opened with Volvo Cars America to go through the process (I tried the USB, but it asked for a license code). I skipped it that day, as I needed the car back, but went home and did some research and digging through the forums.
This is when I found out about Johnny’s P3tool application.
I ended up getting a DiCE cable/boot drive combo… you can probably guess from where, and once I had all of the equipment, I started working on the codes for my car.
About 5-6 hours later, I had the codes and with a purchase of a license from Johnny, I was off to the races. Making a backup of the original config was priority number 1. Not only is this good practice, but in my line(s) of work, is required in every step. Then I got to modifying things. My biggest “want” was remote start. I had the necessary keys for the car (the fob with 6 buttons to be exact), and I already asked the dealer about the feature… $400 wasn’t terrible… but if I can get it for cheaper, that would be nice.
I started off with another change that I wanted, but the dealer refused… open all the windows by holding down unlock (and close with lock)… I live in the northeast of the US (Central NY), weather here is weird to say the least, and having the ability to vent the car before getting in, is REALLY nice. Anyway, I made the change, saved the config… waited through a scary 30ish seconds, and boom! It worked!
So, at this point I went through and made all of the little changes I had seen… TPMS calibration, unrestricted fog lights, and a few others I can’t remember. Everything worked!
I was a little hesitant to do the remote start modification, but after a couple days I gave it a go, found the parameters that needed to be adjusted, made the changes, and… nothing.
All of the other changes were fine, but this didn’t want to work. I tried tons of different combonations, contacted Johnny, just to see if he had any suggestions. We had a couple exchanges (very nice person!), but nothing seemed to stick. I did make some inital progress, but nothing actually started the car (just flashed the lights).
I did some digging around on D5T5, tried some things there, made sure I had plenty of gas and coolant (I did), but there were no errors or codes coming up as to say why the car wasn’t starting.
At this point I pretty much gave up on the idea. I got everything else working, so I figured I would pick the remote start issue up at a later point.
Fast forward to December:
I bring the car in for a Map/Software update, I was a little worried that someone would say something about the config mods, but nope… not at all. When I got the car back, all of my settings and changes were gone… so I figured at this point I was at the latest software version (a mistake… as I found out later), came home, uploaded my saved config, and I was back to where I was… and now, I could update the maps on my own… which it turns out, I needed to do… so after about 2 hours (drove for about an hour of it), I had fully updated maps and what I thought was fully updated software.
After some more fiddling with the remote start, I still could not get it to work.
Fast Forward to mid-March:
I was due for my 135k service, and I had a concern about a sunroof/windshield leak (turned out to be windshield seal!). Took the car into the dealer, and went to work. When I got the car back from the service I noticed that most of my settings had gone away… but not all of them… I figured that was pretty strange. I looked at the service note, and it turns out there was another software update… which was wierd, but okay. When I got home I plugged in, and uploaded my saved config again, no worries at all, back to where I was. A couple days later, I was coming out of work and it was pretty cold, I figured “why not” and tried the remote start on a whim… and IT WORKED!
I just stood there for a second in awe… it was glorious.
I now have everything working that I wanted with no additional cost or fees. It takes longer for the laptop to boot than to make the changes.
So… the TLDR is:
Never assume you have the latest software… especially if the original owner never bothered to update anything. Either way, a big thanks to Johnny for making this possible in the first place, and a lot of the folks here who posted their journies as well. It was nothing but helpful.
As a note, I’m happy to answer questions on the process, though there may be a delay. Thanks for reading all of this, or at least scrolling far enough to read this part