Loss of braking on the 2004 Volvo Xc90
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 35 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When loss of braking gets reported
Owners of the 2004 Volvo Xc90 report loss of braking at a median of 105,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 117,500 miles, from 35 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 78,000 miles. It is the 5th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 65,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 142,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 75,546 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
3% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 65,900 miles | 74,000 miles | 104,500 miles | 117,000 miles | 141,446 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash and 1 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $400–$3,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure, every year of the Volvo Xc90
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
1) 7,500 mile checkup (under 7,000 miles on car) 2) check engine light keeps activating. This started on tuesday. I only use premium gasoline in car. 3) received ''anti-skid service required'' message with yellow indicator light remaining on. This happened on tuesday and later disappeared after driving the car again. 4) there is a problem with the gearshift indicator. When I change gears from park to anything else, the display panel is either blank or it shows an incorrect gear '' it will show neutral when I am in drive or reverse. Also in all cases, the gearshift on the floor will not light up so it doesn''t show at all what gear I am in. This happened once last week and has been happening on and off since then. 5) I think because of number 4 on my list, the car seems to hesitate and even buck a little bit upon acceleration. These symptoms resulted in volvo having to replace the transmission on my car. The car was just reaching its one year mark and had less than 7,000 miles on it when this happened. Thankfully the car is under warranty, but I find it completely unaccaptable and unsafe that something like this would happen to my…
On june 15, 2007, while on a highway traveling 65 MPH, my 2004 volvo xc90 made a jerk, as if it had suddenly fallen out of gear. About 5 minutes later, the same thing happened. It felt as if something locked the tires for an instant, then let go. About another 5 minutes later, we received an error message that said "brake failure, stop safely". Moments later, we lost all control of the car - total electronic shutdown. No lights, no hazards, no power steering, no brakes. My husband was able to glide to the breakdown lane, and we rolled until the car stopped. We had our two young children in the car, on the side of the highway, in the dark. It was a terrifying predicament, and we couldn't leave the car due to the danger of not being seen. We had the car towed, and a few days later, the volvo dealer said it was a $60 software upgrade that needed to be done. After the car was returned to us, we took it to another volvo dealer and had them perform a 45k check-up, had them reevaluate the situation, and also had a va state inspection done, and they told us everything was fine. Just barely 3 months later, in exactly the same scenario, the…
While driving on I-10 at night at approximately 75mph with my family, we experience complete failure of the vehicle's electronics such as loss of braking, steering, odometer, speedometer, all instruments, and transmission. We had a total loss of every electrical function of the vehicle at the most dangerous point and time of our travel - at night, on an interstate, and far from major cities. After much stress and fear, we limped to our destination barely. In short, we had the car towed to a volvo dealer. The dealership stated that the c.e.m. (one of few "brains" of the vehicle failed) needed to be replaced, and of course we did. I know for a fact that c.e.m failures are an common problem with this type of vehicle. Two dealerships have told me that they have dealt with this issue recently. This is a major issue. Our lives were at risk given our circumstance. I cannot imagine what others have experienced. A fire, property damage, crash, and report to police should not in this case be the genesis of a recall. The simple facts of our near grave experience should be sufficient to have a recall. *tr
Also reported on the 2004 Volvo Xc90
Other electrical problem
Other powertrain problem
Complete transmission failure
Fuel pump failure
Other engine problem
Other fuel system problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 35 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does loss of braking happen on the 2004 Volvo Xc90?
Across 35 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 105,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 117,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is loss of braking on the 2004 Volvo Xc90?
35 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed