V70: Electrical Multiple warning lights that extinguish when car is warm

[Si Click]

I have a 2008 MY V70 D5 Geartronic with just under 190K on the clock which I bought with 17K on the clock 10 years ago.
It has recently developed an occasional and annoying electrical issue that only manifests when the car is cold and disappears after about 5 minutes. When cold the dash shows faults on SRS, ABS and TC together with the usual red and amber flashing lights and sounds. Sometimes the indicators stop working and often the speedo and rpm gauges show zero. Throughout this the car drives perfectly normally. The car shows no logged DTCs and has not generated a fault for the last 55K Km (according to TOAD).
I'm thinking an intermittent upstream short, possibly a corroded fuse box or CEM. The battery terminals are tight, the battery is a Yuasa and is less than a year old, though I guess it could still be failing.

Does anyone recognize these symptoms and can anyone suggest a remedy?
Thanks in advance.

Apologies this is a repeat of a previous post which I wrote as did not think my first post had gone through. Please ignore - can I delete a duplicate post?

[harveys]

First stop would be see what voltage you have at cold engine off , Then see what it drops to on start up, Then voltage with loads on engine running.
If the Voltage drops to much the Individual modules can shut down.

[Tannaton]

^^^^^^^ What he said. If the system voltage is low, the anti-skid/ABS is the first thing to lie on it's back with its legs in the air...

I would check :

- Battery - check it - Yuasa has a good reputation on here but my experience of them is they're not very good. Have a Yuasa 5000 (5 year warranty) in my XC90 in it's been replaced twice and it's not even 3 years old.

- Alternator - check pulley - if it's not been replaced so far then I would just replace it. If you look on Youtube a very helpful forum member has done a video on how to check and replace it. The pulley has an overrun clutch on it which can either seize or slip when cold...

- Check system voltage - as soon as engine is running it should be north of 14v.

[ShadeTek]

Does the fault only happen on mornings after it has rained? Possibly water ingress. Does the fault clear as soon as the engine gauge reach a certain temp every time? Heat related?

[Si Click]

Thanks for the replies. I can't check the voltages accurately at the moment as the wife has taken it to Scotland to visit her parents, but she should be back on Wednesday. The battery has one of those green health indicators which was showing green when I checked the battery terminals on Saturday. I also have a rough voltage readout on a USB charger and this normally shows about 12.8v before start and over 14v when charging. I recognise that this is not an accurate measure, it is there to warn of gross faults.

The fault does not seem related to rain, but it is not always obvious when it has rained overnight, so there may be a link.

If it is due to a fault within the instrument cluster, is it possible to fit a secondhand one, or do they need to be coded by a Volvo dealer who will insist on a new part?

[Si Click]

So before my wife took it to Scotland I drained some of the oil as I inadvertently filled it to over 75% of indicated full when I changed the oil a week or so ago.

Since I did that it has behaved itself with no errant warnings at all despite cold and wet in Scotland.

Is anyone aware of a possible causal linkage?

[Tatsfield]

Overfilling the oil on the D5 gives rise to all manner of warnings. It's not that the excess oil is actually doing any damage, it's that the oil level monitoring software was reset to make 75% the new full so that there would be 25% available to accommodate diesel fuel blow-back from DPF regeneration that is incomplete due to changing driving conditions. The ECU thinks that the sump is overfilled and that overfilled oil could be causing over-pressuring of the cylinders but that would necessarily happen until you had well in excess of the original 100% in the sump.

Volvo altered the electronic oil level monitor in a software update to cover their arses when they had poorly designed the DPF regeneration process but didn't run to exchanging the old dipstick for a new one with new levels on it, so owners who don't know about the 75% level or garages who are not familiar with this Volvo madness, can cause the problem by filling to the dipstick full mark when there is actually nothing wrong with the engine at all.

[Si Click]

Thanks for that. I assume the software was changed while the car was under warranty and I was still taking it to be serviced by Volvo. It would have been nice if they had told me they were doing it and what to expect. In fact the first I heard about the whole issue was when the suspension was being seen to by a local Volvo indie. They took the time to treat me like an adult, explain the DPF Biodiesel issue in detail and tipex 5.7 on the oil decal. Volvo themselves have never mentioned it.

[Si Click]

Nope, warning lights back this morning.
They even stayed on when I removed the key. 5 minutes after start they had gone again. Interestingly the radio and display which became intermittent 9 months ago and has not worked at all for the last 4 months, worked fine while the warning lights were on. Does this connection give a clue as to the possible fault site?

Battery voltage at rest was 12.76V and with the engine on, but no additional load it was 14.13V. Terminals are tight. As the battery seems to be OK I'm guessing at an intermittent earth fault or an opening and closing solder break somewhere in the instrument fascia.

Today I went through every fuse, link and relay under the bonnet and behind the glove box, taking each out checking and cleaning contacts before replacing. No sign of any loose connections or water ingress around either fuse box.

My next step might be to send off the instrument cluster for diagnosis and repair. Does anyone have experience of a suitable company, these perhaps?

http://www.clusterrepairsuk.co.uk/re...repair-service

Just found Lukas at Volvodiagnostics and will contact him.

[Si Click]

Just taken out the glovebox to inspect the CEM. All connections were good with no sign of water ingress or corrosion. With the battery reconnected and the engine running, the warnings continued despite me wobbling the CEM and all the connectors. Could still be a fault in the CEM itself, but I don't think it is a loose CEM connection or dodgy earth near the CEM itself.

On the DIM side I had no joy with Lukas at volvodiagnostics, he did not think that the symptoms were speedo related and has not responded to any further messages including my request for his diagnostic services.

Volvo dealer was not much help either, once they finally agreed that this was an issue with the warning lights and not the SRS system, ABS system etc themselves and that replacing everything that was giving a warning was not a sensible way forward, they denied all experience of anything similar and just suggested I spend £75 + VAT with them reading any fault codes, but without any agreement that they would deliver a diagnosis. I have an excellent OBDII reader linked to TOAD and it is not showing any codes at all, so I'm loathe to spend nearly £100 for Volvo just to tell me the same thing.
Is VIDA DICE likely to reveal fault codes that a generic OBDII device will not? If so I would happily buy one and a suitable laptop to run it.
In the meantime, I guess I will remove the DIM and check for dodgy contacts/earth.