NHTSA Complaint #11509510 — 2019 VOLVO XC40

The first incident happened back in Oct 2022. I took the car to local Volvo dealer, Rusnak Pasadena, and they said I needed the secondary battery replaced. They replaced it and the car worked for a few weeks until the alarm regarding the power steering failure came on again while my wife was turning left. I brought the car home carefully since it was a short distance from home. My wife was very scared because she almost had an accident and she doesn’t want to drive it any more….We didn’t drive the car for more than a month. On Jan 5, 2023, I took the car to the Rusnak dealer in Pasadena Ca. and they diagnosed it as: “Internal failure in power steering rack” needed replacement (see attached). They quoted me more than $3,350 to be fixed and they were not sure if warranty of 4 years would cover it. We then took it to JK Volvo Specialists, who I have known for years . They made a special order via Rusnak Volvo for the steering gear unit and it took two weeks to get it …See attached invoice that details the repairs needed to be replaced and total cost of $2500. This caused us to have to rent a car for a week, while we waited for the part to arrive. An additional $235. We believe that the failure of this electrical power steering, was not due to our neglect or error, and according to NHTSA report which states : “Electrical system malfunctions run deep enough to put people in danger, and in fact Campaign number 18V00000 states that some models, such as xc40, have faulty Vehicle Connectivity Module software..."