Alright, this is ridiculous. My bulb failure relay keeps blowing one of my fuses, causing half my lights to go out. I think failing to attend to a blown headlight for a few weeks caused it short out or something. So my solution is to remove the bulb failure relay, it's always seemed pretty useless to me anyway. Any attentive driver checks his lights frequently anyway. So I remove the bulb failure relay, replace the fuse and all my lights come back on. Then I turn my key and nothing happens. My warning lights don't even come on. Whether Volvo did that on purpose or it's just an oversight it's awfully maddening. It does seem like something Volvo would do.

I may still have a solution though, I think the bulb failure relay only blows the fuse when one of my lights is out, unfortunately my right tail light has been going out periodically ever since I backed through a garden wall. Generally it's out when I start the car and it comes on when I go over my first bump. If I can fix that then I don't have to find a new bulb failure relay.

 

I'm pretty sure the bulb failure relay is in series with all the lights it checks, so no relay, no lights. Consider it to be a bonding experience :-)