Hello! I am having terrible luck with my V50. I love the car, but everything is breaking at once. It's a 2008 with 116k miles on it, so still very young for a volvo. I will have to get the timing belt replaced in another 4k miles. I didn't drive it for two weeks and I went to drive it and the instrument cluster is completely dead - no mileage, speed, gas gauge, etc. Also, as if that wasn't bad enough, the driver seat, which is controlled electronically is dead. I can't move it at all. Does anyone know what on earth could have caused both of these things at once? I'm entirely vexed. I hate to pay over a third of the cars value to fix all of these issues. Help please!

 

When a multi-symptom problem like this pops up out of nowhere, look for anything that's common to the two systems (in this case, the instrument cluster and your seat control circuitry). A quick look at a (similar but maybe not identical) service manual suggests that both share a common fuse, designated F18. You could also check 3, 4, 84, 85 and 86, though I'm betting you'll find a problem with F18 (make sure it's got power on both sides of the fuse - a fuse with power on one side only is a blown fuse - quicker to test with a meter or test light than pulling it out to check it visually).