[kealan]

Originally Posted by rbcohen

OK, so the problem has persisted and still not got to the bottom of it yet. I was holding out on taking it in to Volvo until I could find a common cause for it, and hopefully yesterday I found it. Thought I'd continue to document the issue here, and hopefully Volvo can get to the bottom of it next week.

Timeline of problems to date:

May 19th - Car jet washed. Driving along, 10 minutes after car wash, power system failure message. Battery runs flat while driving, car systems begin shutting down. AA arrive, test alternator, alternator is not providing sufficient voltage.

Alternator replaced

June 10th - Driving on motorway in heavy rain. Systems start failing and error messages on dash (power steering, brakes, parking sensors, etc), reduced performance, had to pull over. AA arrive, clear a fault code to do with the alternator and car is back to normal.

June 13th - Drive car to work (6 miles) without issue. Try to start car to leave at end of day, won't start, displays same warning messages as before. Rained during day but not that much. Suspect voltage issues, post this message on the forums.

Replace battery

September 2nd - on holiday in France. Car jet washed, driven 20 minutes back to holiday rental and left on drive. Next morning, start car and reverse it closer to house for loading suitcases for return journey. Switch car off to load. Start car, dashboard lights up with warnings as before, car won't restart. Manage to start car with jump leads (coincidence?), and then drive 400 miles to calais without issue.

October 17th - car wash. Car is jet washed, driven a few metres and parked up. Car fails to start after 10 minutes. Systems failing. AA arrive, battery "seems fine". AA technician thinks it might be the immobiliser, but only as its the first message of eight. Car starts after disconnecting battery. Lots of messages, parking brake won't release. Faults cleared, car performs as normal.

TLDR:
So, the common theme, appears to be water. Hopefully that will be what the Volvo techs look for first on diagnostics.

My only other hunch, is that the voltage readings (albeit via OBD and Torque app) are always low (12.1 - 12.3) when this has happened. Normally the reading is around 12.7 when I've checked and not had issues starting the car. But the fact that this has always happened during/after a lot of water being thrown at the car seems too coincidental.

Will report back after the diagnostics on Monday, in case this ever helps anyone else.

thanks for all your posts, last christmas 2019 i had same electronic issues or similar, i believed it to be water egress somewhere, i did find water goes directly down a flap right above the alarm box on the passenger side of brittish driven car, (my assesment was it takes alot of water in that area bassed on the grey discolouring of a black rubber plug) you can touch the alarm box with the top of index finger or lift up plastic cover, and my solution to keeping the box dry even though one might think its water tight, i dont think it is 100% like not a chance,i got a piece of modern roofers felt the breathable stuff,and sealed the top and front-sides and back, so water didnt enter the wholes of the box and left the bottom openish to let the electronics breath,i taped a few connections under the car while i was investigating,i was all over the cem board looking for signs of water entry and found none on this 2010 v60 the alarm box came nere end of my investigations,its best to remove the alarm box after taking wheel off and wheel arch liner, i advise disconecting battery before disconecting alarm,i did, over a few days i took the car for a spin with the alarm left in the apartment and on ocassions on first start up a message would say alram needs service so it was detecting it wasn't getting a signal, a good 5 months later alarm box plugged back in and the car has been back on the road and no problems hope this might helps someone as the posts in this chat forum helped me. ps if you go looking for the felt you dont need a full roll just have meter a new roll of the modern stuff the cream breathable stuff is expensive. thanks