Hi, I'm having major issues with my Volvo. I replaced the battery and alternator because of the problems I am still having, thinking it would have solved this. My car is dead, I jump it and it runs for about 5 minutes, then it starts running hard all the gauges shut off, if I step on the gas to rev it nothing happens, the windows or anything power won't work, then it dies. If I try to restart it I need to jump it again, I have no idea what this could be. I'm assuming electrical, but I have no clue.....Any help would be appreciated.

 

sounds like something is draining the battery big time or the alternator/voltage regulator or battery is not right. There's a good sticky on either the 850 or V70 board that talks to the general process of finding the cause of a battery drain. In your case its pretty severe so something big is shorting out. Draining a fully charged functional car battery in 5 minutes would take some serious current - like what a starter motor would draw - and that would also produce some serious heat.

If you have a standard volt-ohm meter, you can do some simple tests.

1. with the engine off, measure battery voltage. Normally it should read 12.6 volts give or take. If its 10V say, you have a dead cell, time for a new battery.

2. Now (jump) start the car. At a fast idle with no load (ie all accessories off) you should see 14 to 14.5 V across the battery. If less than 13, either the alternator or voltage regulator is bad, or you have something pulling current.

3. If you see the 14 to 14.5 V, start adding electrical loads - headlight high beams, heater blower on full, rear window defroster, stereo etc all on. The voltage at the battery terminals should stay in the mid to high 13s.

My gut sense is you have a bad battery or voltage regulator and the first three are easily done. If you fail test 2, I'd visit a pro and have them do a proper system test.