I had a strange problem this morning... My new v70 wouldn't start. It would crank okay. I was parked nose down on a slight grade.

I knew there was gas in the car... The gas gauge read just above red, the trip computilator said I still had 75 miles in it. The low fuel light was not on, nor was it when I parked the car last evening.

I had the person who brought the flatbed (courtesy of volvo roadside assistance) put in some gas, and the car started. Good news.

Wouldn't you think that if the car was parked in such a way as to not allow fuel to flow to the engine that the low fuel indicator would light?

I'm interested in comments as to whether the low fuel indicator is properly calibrated. I have seen it to operate before.

This is my first Volvo and I really like it, despite the fact that the passenger side mirror doesn't work, I've had to take the fuse out of the horn due to the issues with the remotes and alarm, the fact that the AM radio reception has recently degraded, the fact that the manual transmission is rough going into second. I've only had the darn thing for about five weeks. Sheesh.

Bx ('01 V70 T5 M)

If this is your first or second tank of gas, the guage may be a bit confused. I've heard of this happening to others before. The next time you fill up, just make sure you fill it all the way up, and it may just fix itself. Provieded this is the problem. I park mine at rediculous nose-down angles (you've been to, or seen pictures of San Francisco hills, haven't you?) with precious little fuel (well, I guess the lowest I've been is an indicated 60 miles remaining, so that isn't TOO dry) in the tank, and I haven't yet had a starting problem.

- Darell

I have a '98 V70. I've found that if there's not much fuel left in the tank (just above the reserve marker) and I park so that the right side is higher than the left, that the engine starts running rough after several minutes. It's being starved of fuel. No "low fuel" indicator comes on. All I have to do is to make the car level again and the engine will run smoothly. This is due to not having much fuel left, where the fuel pick-up is in the tank, and also due to the computer trying to calculate how much fuel there is. It's inexact because the computer interprets the information from the fuel level mechanism in the tank, and for most instances, the computer is quite accurate. In other words, the fuel gauge gets it's info from the computer, not directly from the tank sensor. This is regarding my '98 V70; I would imagine that your new car is similarly arranged. Let the dealer work the bugs out for you, and you'll have a fun car to drive!