Hello All,
I have a '97 850R that suffers blinker, speedometer, dashlight, headlight, (and maybe more?) failure after the car's been sitting in the sun for an extended amount of time. After it cools down, all that stuff works again. Anybody have any ideas?

 

I would check all of your grounds. - AB

 

lol man my car has been doing the same thing but all I do to stop it is turn the key back a little bit. I dont know if this is just because my car is weird but if the key is turned to far then all the electrical stuff like you said goes off. this probly wont help at all but maybe it will

 

You just solved your problem when you said that if you turn your key back a little then everything works again. The gremlin lies within the ignition switch in the steering column. The contact plate inside the switch assembly is worn out and breaking contact causing the electrical failures. They're pretty straight forward to replace. No special tools needed with the exception of a long bit driver or a long reach torx bit to remove the steering column shroud. A T20 or 25 I believe. Once you get the shroud off the switch is right there.

 

My husband is a Volvo mechanic and has never seen this problem before. He's letting the car sit in the sun for a few hours, hoping it will fail (even though Murphy's Law says it won't). If he can figure out this problem, I'll let you know. I gave him the suggestions from this forum and he's grateful for those and will be checking them out.
To be continuted...

 

Hello sskelton,

Greetings from Yokohama, Japan.

Ah, the beauty of electrical/electronic systems. Once something goes wrong, no one can figure out what's wrong, including the guy/gal who designed it.

I was going to tell you to check the battery, as batteries are vulnerable to heat, and an old battery may not perform well. However, it seems like the problem is only seen withincertain dash controls, so I am assuming the problem could be solved by B1mmer & kwik850's solutions.

In many cases, electrical/electronic system problems are caused by poor connections/grounds. I would double-check for cleanliness & integrity of the connectors that lead to inoperative systems. But if your hubby is a Volvo technician, he knows better than I do so in this case I'm not much of help.

Good luck,

P.S: I hope Murphy is on vacation or busy with his own problems[8D].


JPN

 

My husband thinks the failure is due to the ignition switch. It did fail (thankfully) after sitting in the sun for awhile and he messed around with the ignition and got it to un-fail so he will be replacing it in a couple of days. I will post one more time after it has sat out in the sun with the new ignition switch. If it fails again, I'm gettin' another car!
Thanks everyone.

 

Wow, so sounds like Kwik was right.

But maybe it'd be better if he was wrong.....and the problem couldn't be found.

 

Glad to hear the problem was solved. Being a mechanic myself, I know all about the electrical gremlins that only rear their ugly heads for the customers and how much of a pain it could be trying to duplicate the concern. You'd be amazed the amount of wacky issues that a faulty ignition switch will cause.