V50 electrics
 

Hiya,

About 3 times in the last 1 1/2 years I've had a warning light come up saying something along the lines of air bag service urgently required or that they are disabled, when that comes up my windows wouldn't open or close. This only lasted for 10 mins maximum!
A week ago the same message came up again, and again my windows wouldn't open/close but this time the seatbelt alarm was going off (seatbelt was being worn and I stopped and plugged all the others in to see if that would stop it and it didn't) and the key remote to unlock/ lock the car won't work either. It's been nearly a week now and it's still the same.

Any ideas what this might be and how much to fix?
Thanks!

These cars often have intermittent connector problems. The contacts in the connector get a little bit tarnished and don't make a good connection any more and you get strange fault symptoms turning up every now and then.

The solution is often to simply unplug and reconnect the offending connector in the wiring harness. Finding which connector is causing the problem is harder.

Typically the connectors on the 'CEM' (the fuse box that sits under the glove box), are known to cause problems and are usually the first to be checked. In your case I'd also suspect the door harness connectors, as the problem involves the windows.

If these steps don't solve the problem, then you will need to connect the car up to a diagnostics system to find out what has triggered these warnings. Most generic fault code readers are unlikely to give sufficient detail, so it might need main dealer diagnostics (VIDA). You may be able to find a Volvo enthusiast local to you who has a VIDA/DICE diagnostics reader, which will save the cost of a visit to the dealer.

remove a-pillar door plugs clean up and refit

regards

Did you sort this out? I have just got the same symptoms in my 2010 V50. I have been checking with DICE/VIDA and there are all sorts of weird error messages that come and go. It's like the electronics have got coronavirus.

I will pull out the CEM tomorrow and clean contacts and refit all plugs to see if that helps. But I'd be interested to know if you found out what was going on.

Yes! It was the connectors in the door (thanks pinballdave!) and also cleaned out the a-pillar door plugs (thanks volvoforever!). Both did the trick! Goodluck.

It looks like the first thing I tried has worked! Took out the door harness plug, applied contact cleaner then contact enhancer and replaced. Everything seems to be back to normal. That was quite an alarming set of apparent faults for a simple bad connection. Thanks for the advice.

One weird thing I discovered though. When I got the car I was given 2 identical keys - one of the emergency keys works for locking and unlocking, but the other only locks, the unlock won't turn. That's annoying as it means I dare not use it (in case this problem happens again) so I will have to share the one working key with my wife.