2002 s60 ABS, AC, Battery failure-what happened?

hismelaei · Post by **hismelaei** » 17 Jul 2015, 17:43

Mechanic Quiz!!!
Please only answer if you have an actual idea. We cannot get the car seen until Sunday and this is driving me nuts.
You are pulling into a parking lot. As you pull in, hit the brakes and shift into Park, the following happens...
Air conditioner cuts off.
Battery light comes on.
Car displays the following two messages;
1-El power system service required.
2-ABS failure. Stop safely.
The car then dies. All lights are off and nothing happens when you attempt to start the vehicle. When the vehicle is hooked up to another car with jumper cables, it will start (when started, the battery light comes on and error message 1 displays)...but as soon as jumper cables are disconnected, the car dies and will not restart unless cables are reattached.
What happened?

Post by **abscate** » 17 Jul 2015, 18:43

Your battery either developed an internal open circuit or your battery Cables are bad

hismelaei · Post by **hismelaei** » 17 Jul 2015, 19:01

Can you please explain what that means? Everyone else is telling me that it is the alternator. I'm on a really short budget, and the alternator is going to run me $185+tax+core charge (obviously would get that back, but you have to have it to get it back) and then that I might need to also replace the battery, which is another $150 or more + tax.

I would be delighted if it were something less expensive. My special needs child has a doctor's appointment in Rochester (we're in Syracuse, around 70 miles away) on Tuesday...so waiting to fix it is not an option.

Our mechanic friend is awesome and will charge us the bare minimum for labor, but he's camping until Sunday.

Post by **vtl** » 17 Jul 2015, 19:14

Sounds like bad voltage regulator. $45 on fcpeuro: https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/volvo- ... ch-8637851

Battery needs to be checked/recharged as well.

Post by **abscate** » 17 Jul 2015, 20:08

Get your battery on a charger tonight. Beg borrow a battery charger of at least 4 amps charge rate and get that battery charged up full. You need to sort out the alternator battery combination with a known to be good battery.

How old is your battery ? Upstate winters are tough on batteries and 5 years is a long life.

Once the car is running, you can see if the alternator is charging the battery. If it isn't, it's likely that the voltage regulator replacement (50'usd) will fix it.

You only get 2-3 hours of running on battery alone...ROC is too far for that.

While you are waiting, you can remove the battery cables from both ends and clean the connections until shiny. It's possible for the cables to go bad while looking fine but let's not sweat that.

These aren't great budget oriented cars. If you don't do at least 1/2 of the maintenance work, they will put you in the poorhouse to the tune of 2000 per year.

Post by **oragex** » 18 Jul 2015, 10:32

While old batteries do go bad because of age, I believe they often times are damaged by a failing alternator. In other words, if the alternator doesn't charge it properly, the battery will quickly wear.
A failing alternator could be either bearing seizing or as mentioned only the regulator failing.
For the alternator I would try with a used one off Ebay. Just make sure you match the regulators model properly as in these years Volvo changed them quite often and the model must match your car.

Measuring the voltage at the alternator is easy. I won't go replacing the battery unless 100% sure the alternator is working right, or it will ruin the new battery too.

Post by **abscate** » 18 Jul 2015, 11:25

Op...sent you a PM...read it by clicking on the (1 new message) link up,above.