I've got a 2000 V70 that all the lights, dash, interior, and exterior flicker constantly. It is so bad that while driving, activating the windows, blower motor, or high beams, the car will sometimes stall and almost shut off in the middle of driving! Also when it stalls like that, the ABS, BRAKE, TRACS, and SRS lights will turn on for a couple seconds, almost as if the computer thought the car shut-off and re-runs the tests as if the car was just being started again. (if that makes any sense)

It's my wife's car, and I have deemed it unsafe for now. I checked the battery voltage at idle and it is between 13.5v and 13.7v but whenever there is a load (blower motor, highbeams, etc.) it drops to 13.48v-13.5v. I have read that 13.5 is the lowest it should go or it's a bad alternator.

Anybody know of anything else that might cause this? Anything else I should check before replacing the alternator? At this point, I may just drop the $200+ on an alternator and hope it fixes the problem... desperate to get this car on the road again.

 

Forgot to mention that the battery is fine because I put an almost new battery out of my S70 into this V70, and the S70 had no issues.

 

Your symptoms and investigation do seem to point to the alternator. What is the voltage with as many accessories on as possible? Did you notice the "not charging" battery light illuminate just before stalling in the past?

As for deeming your wifes's car unsafe, you can probably get a magnetic bumper sticker for when she drives your car to warn others!

 

Definitely does sound like a regulator/alternator problem.

To the OP akem 21,
I am curious to know if you found any kind of solution on the problem.

 

I have the same problem with my Volvo 2004 and usually if I reset the ECU it will work for a couple of days or hours. I think the problem would be the ECU then but I don't know yet for sure because I am planning to replace the ECU and see what happens

 

After a lot of headaches and long hours under the hood, I had my shop look at it and they determined that the cable running from the starter to the battery (cable runs from alternator to the starter then to the battery) wouldn't allow the proper voltage through to keep up with the electrical load and that would cause the alternator to act up making me think that was the issue. So they just ran an additional wire (leaving the original positive cable connected) from the starter to the positive post on the battery and I haven't had any problems since! The alternator and battery show good voltage now.

A surprisingly easy fix! But I would have never figured it out on my own.

 

Sad to say that it is a common issues with these Volvo's.