throwing in the towel perhaps

[northernlights]

You should have the same voltage from positive at the battery to the ground terminal as across the two terminals at the battery. Think of the ground point on the front of the car as essentially an extension of the negative terminal on the battery.

As an interesting exercise, check the resistance from the negative cable to the ground point - it should be zero. If it isn't, or if you can change it by wiggling things, then you have a bad connection somewhere. Test leads with alligator clips make this a pretty easy exercise. In a pinch use a jumper cable from the negative terminal only if you don't have long enough leads...just make sure the jumper cable you use has zero resistance, or at least measure it and know what it is.

I'm not sure if you took your measurments with the car running, but if you are reading less than 12V with the car running, that is a problem.

Wiggling wires that change things are never good!

-Eric

[warcraftjunkie]

She's in the hands of the Volvo dealership mechanics this morning. I tried to limp her there but I stopped about halfway there when I came to the sad conclusion that it just wasn't safe driving her there. I gave them a ring to let them know that I was going to be late and that I would need a tow. They sent a truck out to pick me up and 20 minutes later I was in their lot. I asked what the tow was going to cost me and they said nothing! Turns out this family of dealerships covers the cost of tows to their service departments. at $120.00 an hour at least that's covered. Hopefully I'll get a call later today with a diagnosis.

[Rocky]

I'm going out on a limb here.
Was working at a friends shop building my truck and he has a jeep come on. It drives like cr@p did single digit mpg, smelt of gas. He'd had it in and dug into it a few days before with nothing obviously wrong. For a few days it ran great then whammo, it went back to running like well you know!
Finally tracked it down to a single wire leading to the injectors was shorting out after the insulation wore through on the block.
Short repaired, wiring properly routed and problem solved. Bill paid to!

[warcraftjunkie]

Well, just got off the phone with the service dept. He's doing the write up now. Looks like they want 1300 for a ECU rebuild/reload, 750ish for ETM,and 450ish for MAF. The ETM is a new xemodex rebuild so there's no way they are putting in a factory version of that... even if it is bad, I'd just get warranty claim. The MAF as I stated earlier is only getting 5 volts.... but how is that the fault of the MAF??? I tested it as getting 5 volts on the wiring harness, to me means that the car's electrical system is only delivering 5volts to it.

I swear I want to go back to a mid 70's car with no/little electronics!!!

[jblackburn]

Sounds to me like they're just throwing parts at it.

[warcraftjunkie]

I agree. getting disgusted with that approach, that's why I took it to them so it could be "diagnosed" properly.

[northernlights]

When the diagnosis delivered is 'Everything is broken', I wonder if they actually know. I am also inherently skeptical when the people tasked to fix your car have an incentive to sell you a different car.

I'm still in the wiring problem camp, unless a Ouiji board specifically told them the ECM, ETM and MAF decided to simultaneously expire. I know you've had it in another place with no success, and transporting a dying car around is no fun but...do you have a different shop around that can take a closer look? Someone who can actually troubleshoot problems? Maybe put out feelers on the boards for someone in SLC?

-Eric

[northernlights]

Here's a place 12 miles down the road, assuming you are at Ken Garff Volvo in SLC. Web page looks good.

http://www.alexsautohaus.com/

[warcraftjunkie]

Yeah, I'm at Ken Garff waiting for the tow. The tech listed the root of the problem as being the "CDM". Its in the dash behind the instrument cluster....says all computer parts and sensors run through it. Apparently until he manually entered the vin in Vida, he wasn't able to get it to read anything. So i may have been premature in calling it a crap shoot. also the etm wasn't reading in their tests. He said it was as though they (xemodex) didn't transfer from the old one properly.

Anyone heard of the CDM? Or of it failing in this model?

Other good indie Volvo shops here are Herms Volvo and Al's...each place has over 40 years experience. I've heard good things about autohaus, but thought they were more of a German shop.

[northernlights]

I believe that is what is labeled as the Combined Instrument Panel. It looks like the OBD port interfaces through that, but I do not believe it oversees all functions. That would seem to complicate things considering they install a separate ECM and TCM modules.

-Eric