door wiring breakage
 

Hi,
I have a 2008 V70 and have just had a couple of wires break in the wiring harness from the body to the drivers door due to 10 years of twisting when opening/ closing the door. This prevented the door lock working properly and mirror control from working. It was fixed by unplugging the wiring harness connector on the door pulling it all through intro the car (under the dash) and re-soldering the broken wires. To replace the harness cost a kings ransom so wasn't considered. I understand that this sort of failure is not uncommon on a number of cars these days. If this is not uncommon then somebody must have come up with a fix that provides a plug with a bunch of wires (about a 12 inches or more long) that replace the wires between the door and body and connects to the harness under the dash with new connectors. My issue is that if 2 wires have broken within the harness then more are bound to go soon (all 10 years old and equally fragile) and would like a better solution.
Hope I made myself clear on this issue.
Anybody heard of anything solution like this??

Thanks for your help/ suggestion/ ideas

Best Regards
Brian

I have not, but if wires cost, let's say, 10 cents a foot, why would anybody bother? To repair 12 wires surely would be much more work than to replace just one which was broken.

I had an 850 with 300,000 miles on it and no failures of this nature, so I am not sure how common it really is. Go figure.

Hi firebird,
When I told my tame garage of the issue he immediately knew what the issue was as he had had it on a polo and other vehicles.
Its not the insignificant cost of the wire. To do the job properly the wiring needs changing right up to the plug in the door from under the dash. Assuming the connectors within the plug are not able to be removed, can the plug in the door be bought. Are they unique to the manufacturer or freely available from some electrical dealer or can the existing wire connectors and bits of broken wires be removed from the plug and new ones inserted?

Volvo had issues with the connectors on the P1 and made a repair harness like you described. I don't know if they make it for the P3. However, they have repair terminals available that come with a length of wire attached. You could order the repair terminals and either remove the ones from you existing connector or buy a new connector as well.

E6ST
Many thanks for your suggestion. Sounds that Volvo has thought it through.
Brian

E6ST
Yup, Volvo supplied me connectors with 1 ft wires attached already for connection to the harness under the dash. Good for another ten yeas I hope! So for them to have a solution it must be a known issue (and looking at the shortness of the wire between door and body - on a V70 and others - even new models in showroom) i'm not surprised).
Thanks again
Brian

Do you have any identification for the wiring stub? (part number, brand)

I saw my wiring was damaged when I inspected it a month ago, and now it's broken.

Thanks!