S60 Electrics: Sudden Dashboard failure,New Drvr Information Module Needed?

[Johnnyboy1]

Originally Posted by ajc11251

Hi All,

I have been the happy owner of my T5 '52 reg for a little under a year now, and dispite the cost of brakes and tyres, I've been a happy bunny.

Until the other day.

My car has the RTI system fitted which has started to play up. On the odd occaision it seems to get lost, and puts me in the middle of a field. This may or may not be related to my problem, but worth mentioning just in case.

Anyway, the other day after coming to the end of my daily commute of 45 miles to work, the dashboard went dead. The car ran fine, engine okay, all exterior lights were functioning but no speedo, tacho, mileage or information system. Radio, RTI and phone all still worked?!?!

After leaving the car switched off for a little while it seemed to be okay.

I took the car into Volvo in Basingstoke, where, after relieving me the burden of carrying £50.00 in my wallet told me nothing was wrong.

But, now when I drive it lasts about 10 miles before shutting off. As always the car runs fine without any issues. But.. Volvo have quoted £700+ for a new Driver Information Module, which they claim must be the problem.

Help??

Does this sound right? Are their any wiring problems I could be looking into first?

While I'm at it, does anyone know of a good independant in either Basingstoke or Swindon?



p.s. If every part of a car costs this much, how do they make any money when the put them all together and sell them for the prices they do??

Hi,
Sorry to jump on the back of your thread, but could you advise how this was resolved. I've just bought my car (Robbed) new gear box within 2000 miles, numerous electrical / seemingly computer related problems one of which seems to be an identical failure to your dashboard problem. Every morning, I get around 5 minutes of dashboard then it goes into a 6 second shutdown routine, first, all of the warning lights in bottom right hand corner come on, 3 seconds later, all the dial drop to zero readings (Speedo, tacho, water temp and fuel guage) then after another couple of seconds, lights go out and its all dead for another 24 hours until the next day? Doesn't seem like a loose / frayed wiring problem given the consistency / predictability of it. Also, typically a couple of times a day, gear box gets stuck in 3rd gear. If I stop, turn it off and restart it, all seems fine indicating what appears to be another computer problem. Any details of the dealer you used to solve it would be gratefully received to stop some other franchised dealer learning on my wallet time!!.
Thanks for any help you can offer.
John

[Johnnyboy1]

I can confirm that today, I've resolved what appears to be an identical problem on my 2003 S80 T6 to the one suffered by the T5 S60 and "S60Drivers" car above using the method indicated by S60 driver.

Symptoms were :
Upon first starting in the morning, all ok with all dashboard functions working fine.
2miles / approx 4 minutes into the first journey EVERY MORNING, dashboard started to go into a shut down routine as follows :
1. All warning lights in bottom right hand corner come on solid for 2 secs
2. Digital panels drop to dashed lines and hold for 2 seconds. (Trip, odometer, clock etc).
3. All dials / instrument arms drop to zero position (Temp, revs, speedo, fuel).
4. 2 seconds later all lights go out and thats it for the next 24 hours, no matter how often you start it, let it cool down etc, no further life till the next morning.

Solution:
Cut the two tabs of the carpet under the front drivers seat anchor position. (Saves unbolting the seat).
Ease the carpet out from under the centre console and the door runner to allow you to fold the carpet forward into the footwell.
You'll see under the carpet 2 black heater ducts sat on the floor, under the left hand one you'll find approx 4 grey cables intertwined. This is the design fault because these sit under the duct which puts them squarely between the duct and the floorpan. Any vertical pressure down on footwell carpet, e.g. drivers resting foot position puts pressure on the duct and in turn squashes the 4 cables onto the floor pan.

I'm not sure whether it was frayed sleeving that was causing cables to short out against each other or whether one of them was shorting to earth on the floor pan but all I've done is pull the cables taught and position them along side the duct and then positioned the carpet / insulation back around them and hey presto, had a perfectly functioning dashboard since I put the carpet back in this morning. No £1000 dashboard needed!!!.

All Hail to S60Driver.

[S60-MBS]

I am glad your cars sorted Johnny...amazing how simple things can cause so much problems and how much the unwary customers will pay for these so called repairs..

[Stickydub]

I had a similar problem with volvo in so far as that I also took my car to a dealer for an electrical problem expecting them to be god, they changed numerous parts, I had to return on numerous occasions, they charged me a ridiculous amount, still hadnt fixed the problem and then the guy at volvo who explained why all this had taken place told me it was because they gave my car to a spotty teenager who had no idea what he was doing other than plugging it into the diagnostic machine and then doing what it told him to do i.e change this change that, in the end I swore at them lots, so they refunded me for all the previous work they had done due to misdiagnosing the problems, then took my car home, opened the bonnet up and had a poke around myself, found a dodgy wire, fixed it and haven't had the problem since, whatever you do people, have a play around yourself first, you probably know more about your car than they do!

[Johnnyboy1]

Hi all, sad to say problem not fully solved, much improved and keeps coming and going during the day sporadically so I'm sure the under floor wiring is the problem.

Having the seats and centre consoles out at home in a couple of weeks to trace the full wiring loom to try and find the short curcuit / fraying and if found, replace it or patch it up.

Will report back when investigations done.

[S60-MBS]

Hi Johnny try relocating the loom under the tunnel console ..i believe the seat runner end up pinching the wiring..

[Johnnyboy1]

Hi S60 Driver.

Forums finally up and running again so I'm finally able to report back on a success from earlier this year.

Essentially, dashboard problem resolved, found an electronics / dashboard expert from near Norwich I think who new all about the problem and how to solve it. Thankfully, he didn't turn out to be full of BS and circa 6 months on, dash is still working fine although the wallet's a little lighter (£170 but considered by me to be cheap at twice the price!).

Full details in the text below from an email sent to a forum user directly before the forum was pulled. Only thing to update on the text below is that I've done 25,000 miles in the last 6 months and the dash as performed perfectly without blinking once.

Hope this helps somebody out there.

Following a dashboard failure on a the father in law's merc, and not wanting to pay the quoted £900 for a second hand one from Mercedes, searched t'internet and found Cluster Repairs UK, based in Anglia. They re-invigorated the merc's so I opened a conversation about the Volvo.
It appears that whilst Volvo are reluctant to admit it, this company's seen quite a few S60 and S80's from 02 and 03 with the same problem. Seemingly there's a multi plug somewhere near the clutch foot / rest pedal that through condensation / damp deteriorates over time causing occasionally faulty connections. This, in time blows certain modules within the dash causing the intermittent fault we all seem to be discussing.
Whilst being a bit sceptical to start with because of it working perfectly when it was on, Ethan undertook to take delivery of my dash and do a bench test to replicate the fault before undertaking any work.
The other thing that I realised was that he was obviously linking the fault to a wiring loom issue again in the drivers area which corresponded with S60 Driver's info and a couple of other bits I've picked up while hunting.
Still a bit sceptical, I duly posted my dash off which due to the complex nature of the way these cars are put together, stopped my central locking, indicators and heating system from working rendering the car undriveable (Oh how I wish for the good old days when you could trace every circuit electrically!!).
Anyway, upshot of it all is that 4 days later, my dash arrived having paid £168.99 (Inc postage) for the replacement of 11 modules in the dash. Full of exitement, I rushed home early from work and fitted it in a couple of minutes. (Important point to note though, as advised by Ethan is that due to the need to charge capacitors within the module, the earth should be disconnected from the battery before installation, when installed, the ignition should be turned on and left on for 10 minutes to feed the capacitors, only then should the earth be re-connected) This was done 3 days ago, I've done 500+ miles since fitting it and there's not been a blink from the dash, i.e. it's working perfectly. It really is an odd feeling after 5 months to climb into it knowing it's going to work!.
That said, I've had the underside of the dash out, the gear nob trim, and the lower side trims to either side of the drive tunnel and I can't find the multi plug which is believed to be the cause of the problem. The upper part of the drive tunnel trim is integral with the dash and looks to be a much bigger exercise to remove. This leaves me with the potential prospect of the problem coming back again in the future.
Can anybody help with a more precise location for the multi-plug / info on how best to access it. I'm advised that merely taking it apart and giving it a quick squirt of WD40 is all it needs.
Ethan can be contacted on 07934 345959 or via their website at www.clusterrepairsuk.co.uk For anybody in Anglia / the East they have a mobile service or a drive in and wait service or a typical 4-5 day turnaround by post.
Certainly details to remember for the future.
Hope this helps with anybody else's problems.
John

[S60-MBS]

Hi John glad to hear your cars sorted,I recently changed the interior on my car and while the car was gutted i managed to left the carpets and see where the original loom was located and the new location of loom but i could not see any multiplugs anywhere,the part where loom goes under footrest i saw too but its only just touching the area.

[zx6rman_uk]

I had exactly the same on my D5.

It turned out to be the DIM itself (I since found out its a particular power chip on there)

Anyway Volvo said it would be 650 quid for a new DIM plus programming it!!!

I got a 2nd had one, it works fine and took about 5 mins to fit. The milage however is from the car it came from but it cost me 90 quid so I'm ok with that.

I do have the SRS service need light on now which i didnt have before so this could be a symptom of the DIM failing I dont know.

[Johnnyboy1]

I have the SRS message on the display also, hadn't associated the two, just thought it was another bug that needed sorting out in what turned out to be a "learning lesson" when I bought the car last November.

I have heard that the S80 has a persistent problem with the occupancy sensor on the passenger seat which brings this message up.

This is my first Volvo, can anybody advise if the seatbelt warning light and alarm sounder should work for the passenger seat also if occupied but not belted up? Currently only works on the drivers seat but that may be as designed? pls advise.

Cheers for the update S60 Driver. The Dim's been ok for over 6 months now, I'll probably be changing the car at the end of next year with 200k on the clock so rather than risk jostling anything else, I think I'll run the risk of leaving it alone for now.

Other things to sort out on it first including a second gearbox problem.

John