Update: Put brand new battery in. Started twice right away. Then went inside for an hour or so. Went back out and it won't start now. No sound, engine doesn't try to turnover, lights come on but won't start, just nothing at all happens except dash/lights/radio coming on. So obviously it has nothing to do with the battery. Starter, ignition, ground? Any ideas?

Hi. So I have a 94' Volvo 850. It has a crappy battery that I planned on replacing for winter. Battery needed a jump a couple times in last few weeks after I didn't drive car much and first real cold nights. Always started right up using my little portable jumper. The other night I had to drive to Hartford from Boston. Stopped after about 40 mins to use rest area. Came out and car wouldn't start. Lights went on, dash lit up but no start, engine didn't try to turn over, no sound from inside car. I used my portable jumper and still nothing. This is the first time ever that the car didn't start and a jump didn't solve it. I then had two people try to jump my car with theirs, no result. Spent an hour on phone trying to get tow and decided to try it again randomly and it started with just a tiny hesitation. Drove to CT turned off the car. Then 30 seconds later started it just to see what would happen and it started right up. About 12 hours later I started it again with no problem. Then that night I went to drive back to Boston and it wouldn't start. Tried about 30 times. I checked fuses, battery connections, other connections, everything looked fine. The lights were going on and dash was lit up but it would not start. I hooked the car up to a 10v charge and went in for 30 mins. Came back out and it started fine. About 36 hours later I started it again with no problem. Even so I took the battery out and went and bought a brand new one. It then started twice in a row with no issue. Which brings us to now and I'm wondering if it will start when I need it from now on.

Edit: One more thing that popped into my head. Car seems to have a little less power than normal in "economy" driving mode. Acceleration seems a little slower and seems to not want to go to highway speed quite as easily. Not sure if this is in my head or not, pretty sure it's actually happening. I have had the car in economy mode (there is a switch in center console to go between sport and economy) almost the entire time I have had it, which is a couple years. One day I parked and looked down and it was in sport mode, I must have hit it accidentally. I never knew if you had to be driving to switch back and forth (like 4WD) or if you could move it at a standstill or what. I assumed it was better to be driving slowly and that was the only time I would ever change between modes. Well the day I saw it in sport I was super tired and not thinking and switched it over to economy while parked and the car was off I believe. I think that was the day before this problem started happening. Is there anyway this is responsible for my issue??

 

check the shifter position? also try locking/unlocking the doors 5x with the fob to reset the immobilizer. Did you fully tighten the cables? If you have a VOM, try measuring the voltage - should be like 12.5 or 12.6 Volts.

 

The shifter is definitely in park. I tried running from park to low like 10-20 times to reset the PNP switch (think that's what it's called, I read about it in another thread). I don't have a Fob just a regular old key. Don't have a VOM but the battery was literally just brought home from store when this happened again today. Thanks for the ideas!

 

one more idea, if the car fails to turn over intermittantly, also try wiggling the key when starting - you could have a faulty ignition switch.

 

Thanks for the ideas!i meant to update this. I actually ended up buying a new starter because I got a good deal with a discount code and speed perk I had at Advanced Auto. Had it installed and that was the problem! Looks like it was the original starter still in car from factory. Since the new starter was put in the car has been idling at a higher RPM than usual and engine revs on it's own on startup sometimes for 10-15 seconds or so. Not sure what's going on with that but it starts now.

 

look around for a vacuum line that may have been displaced or torn during the install - particularly the lines going back to the evap cannister

 

Ahh yeh....my evap/charcoal canister actually fell off somewhere around a year ago. And.... I never had it put back on. So the vacuum lines for that have been open on one end for that long without this issue. Maybe mechanic knocked then off on the other side lol.