I havea '95 850 wagon and for the past month or two my dashboard indicator lights have been sporadically coming on after turning off my car. This would happen every few days and I would just wait a minute and turn the key to turn the elec. system on and off till the lights would go off. I didn't take the car in to the shop until last week when I decided that the exhaust noise that had been getting worse was too loud too handle. The cracked catalytic convertor pipe that was causing the noise was fixed and my mechanic said he was 98% sure that my ignition switch was faulty and that was the cause of my indicator lights staying on. So he put a new ignition switch in. And I hoped for the best. But two days after getting my car back, on Friday, those darn lights came on again! The car sat over the weekend and when I went to start it this morning, the battery was totally drained. I called my mechanic and he said I should jump it and get it into him and he'd try to see if he could get the indicator lights to come on because only then could he diagnose the problem. So that's where I am at...a new ignition switch that I apparently did not need and hoping that he will be able to get those @#$^%@ lights to come on so maybe he can figure out whats going on....however many dollars later than my grad student income will choke on!
If anyone else has had this problem, feel free to chime in, I'll welcome any feedback!
Thanks!

 

Hi,

Welcome to the forum, I hope you find it helpful & enjoyable.

Sorry about the problem, it must be frustrating.

If you could, please specify which lamps are coming back on. Are they always the same lamps, or are they random? There may be a short circuit that is allowing lamps to turn on when they are not supposed to. Do they come on while driving?

If your mechanic has replaced the electrical portion of the ignition switch, he might have neglected to clean the inside or the new switch may have been defective (on rare occasions, it does happen), but this is only if the ignition switch was actually the culprit. I would say it is fair for him to reimburse the cost of the parts and you give up the labour. Working on cars is far more complicated than most people think, especially with modern electronic systems, and I don't know of any medical doctor who does not make a small mistake once a while (I personally think it's OK, as long as it does not cause death/permanent damageand is also human nature. The only way to prevent same mistake/accident happening is to create fool proof. "Being careful" doesn't solve a problem, and if it does, the world should be trouble-free by now. Sadly, the world loves to punish individuals and thus the same accident keeps happening again & again).

Lastly, when you service your car, I would take it either to the dealer (I know they charge more and often try to take advantage of customers) or to an independent shop that specialises in Swedish/European makes.

I hope this gives you some ideas. Give us your feedback on which lamps come on, and in the meantime, good luck in your grad school program.

Cheers,


JPN

 

Thanks for the input & well wishes JBN!

The lights that have been staying on, I don't know specifically but pretty much, it was all of the indicator warning lights on the dash.

Actually, my mechanic just called and asked me the samequestion! He asked if it was my dash background lights staying on. I said no, it was my indicator lights. I didn't have the where-withall then to ask if he based the bad ignition switch on the fact that he thought the dash illumination (lights illuminating odometer, speddometer, etc.) (when it was really the indicator lights) coming on. Is a bad ignition switch something that would causethe dash illumination to stay on? Because if so, I really feel that I should ask for my money back for the ignition part because he trying to fix the wrong thing!

As for the real problem, does anyone have experience with abad alternator causing the dash indicator lights to come on after turning off the car?