V70 1999 No Crank situation

[RocBar]

Hello All,
I have a 1999 V70 XC AWD turbo automatic transmission with a no crank problem.
First, sorry for the long post, but want to give a complete picture of what's going on and wha I've done.

The problem started abruptly. First my son started the car, but the door chime did not turn off with the engine running and the doors closed. He turned off the engine, started the car, but again the door chime did not go off. My wife started to try helping by fiddling with the door latch and exterior handle which did not help. I then got involved. Car was shut off and when I tried to start it the car did not crank. After trying a couple of times, the car started normally and the door chime turned off as it should. I turned the car off and have not been able to get the car started since.

Apparently the door chime not turning off after starting the car was happening very sporadically over the last year, but the wife neglected to mention it. She was able to get it to go off by opening and closing the door a few times.

At first, when trying to start the engine, the starter would not spin, but I could lhear a clunk from the solenoid. I could hear this also when jumping the remote starter by pass inside the main fuse box to the pos batt terminal. I disconnected the neg battery cable when I removed the fan & shroud to access the starter. After reconnecting the neg bat cable to do tests at the starter, all further attempts to start the car caused no clunking noise from the solenoid. Nor did jumping the remote by pass cause the solenoid to click.
All dash lights, and interior lights work as normal.

I tried starting the car in neutal, but the no crank situation stayed the same.

I pulled the green wire spade connector from the solenoid; connected my voltmeter between that and the neg batt terminal (cable was reconnected by this time). It showed 0 volts with the key turned over to the crank / start position.

The Starter and Starter Relay are good. All fuses test ok . I pulled the starter out and bench tested it since the fan was already out but I still had trouble accessing the connections on the solenoid to test it in the car.

At the starter relay connections, wire 30 shows 12V all the time. wire 86 shows 12V and wire 85 shows a ground connection with the key in position III / crank position. I don't see any continuity between the two 87 wires and the green wire spade clip to the solenoid nor between the remote by pass terminal and that green wire to the solenoid.

I need suggestions on where to go from here. From what I've read in the forum, I gather that a problem w/ the antenna ring or immobilizer can cause a problem with starting the car, but they will not cause a complete no crank. I did pop the cowling off the steering column to look for anything grossly obvious. Didn't see any wiring corrosion or antenna ring displacement. The light for the antenna ring is on all the time - even with no key in the ignition. I don't know if that is normal or not.

Assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
Roc

[abscate]

That’s a lot of symptoms!

The starter circuit on a 1999 is a bit complicated. The key position three on the ignition switch sends 12 volts to the starter relay, but the ECU closes the relay ground through the 2/76 lock controller as part of the immobilized system.

The jumper terminal is upstream of the PnP switch on the transmission so if there is a problem at the PnP that jump won’t help

I’m bothered by no cranking when applying 12 volts directly at the starter solenoid, that points to bad starter

Finally, that key chime is pointing to a bad ignition switch, electrical part. How old is that part? If it is original it’s probably past her prime

The antenna ring light is triggered by door opening as a courtesy light, very polite. That has nothing to do with cranking once the immobilized is happy

[RocBar]

That’s a lot of symptoms!

The starter circuit on a 1999 is a bit complicated. The key position three on the ignition switch sends 12 volts to the starter relay, but the ECU closes the relay ground through the 2/76 lock controller as part of the immobilized system.

The jumper terminal is upstream of the PnP switch on the transmission so if there is a problem at the PnP that jump won’t help

I’m bothered by no cranking when applying 12 volts directly at the starter solenoid, that points to bad starter

Finally, that key chime is pointing to a bad ignition switch, electrical part. How old is that part? If it is original it’s probably past her prime

The antenna ring light is triggered by door opening as a courtesy light, very polite. That has nothing to do with cranking once the immobilized is happy

Abscate, thanks for the reply. Taking your comments in order:
I have read your posts on the immobilizer system, but may not have understood all of it. I was under the impression that an issue with the 2/76 lock controller would cause the car to not start but at least it would crank. Sounds like I was wrong about that. In one of your many posts I think there was mention of two terminals on the lock controller for where the signal for grounding the circuit would go in and out (if functioning). Would back probing these wires with a voltmeter be a way to troubleshoot the lock controller? I don't have the skill set to open it up and TS the ciruit board.

As for the PnP switch, since the problem occurs in neutral as well as park, doesn't that indicate the problem does NOT lie in the PnP switch?

Apologies for not being clear in the original post, but the starter does work when applying 12V directly at the starter. Though I did this test w/ the starter out of the car. The starter motor would spin and the bendix slide out as it should.

The ignition switch is probably the original. I got the car a few years ago from a couple in their late 90's. By that time it had been sitting for two or three years due to a broken radiator. The husband did much of his own work on the car. Unfortunately, he couldn't remember much that he had done and they couldn't find what service records that they had thought they had kept. But the car had only 111,000 miles on it and I bartered for it at a reasonable price. Since replacing the radiator and adding new tires to get it on the road, I've gradually been replacing other things that are worn or need service.
From what I've read, to replace the ignition switch, it seems better to get a new one with its keys since the switch is programmed to work with the keys that come with it. Pulling an ignition swtich from a salvage yard and getting it reprogrammed to work with the keys that I have would be problematic / expensive. Is that correct?
Besides an ignition switch malfunction causing the door chime staying on, wouldn't the sensor in the door lock also be a possible culprit?

Roc

[abscate]

There are two parts of the ignition switch

Mechanical part is security bolted to the steering column. You need a Dremel to release the screws to remove replace this. No electrical connections. Rarely goes wrong

The back part of the switch is held in by two torx bolts and has all the electrical stuff. They last 100-150k miles
Part 9447804 but there is a mid year part change, too, in 1999

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=55868&p=281691&hili ... t5#p281691

On a 1999 keys have to be programmed In with a connection to the Volvo server, using the VIDA program

[scot850]

+1 to what abscate says. Electrical part change out does not require any key swapping/programming.

Neil.

[RocBar]

ign_switch_8650054_v70.JPG (69.14 KiB) Viewed 598 times

Turns out I have the later model switch p/n 8650054. My car was manf 02/99 so I was thinking that it was an earlier production model, but I forgot to figure in that '99 cars started to be made in later '98. The chassis number is 606621 and which is well after the cut over to the newer style. But still, thanks for all the links to the 9447804 switch. It was still worth while to read through them.

From what I've read in the forum, the newer style doesn't suffer as much from failure. There are about 135,000 mi on the car. Of course that doesn't mean the switch isn't an issue. I'll try going through the switch later to look for wear. I'd like to try to determine if something really is defective w/ the switch before spending about $80 on a new one. Guess I'm a cheap SOB. But I've got some Thanksgiving prep duties to attend to today first.

One thing that puzzles me is the before and after results from the first time I disconnected the neg batt cable. Before disconnection, the solenoid would click when turning the key to position III or using the remote by pass in the main fuse box. After reconnecting the neg batt cable, there was never any click from the solenoid. I would think that this meant that before the first disconnect of batt neg some voltage was getting to the solenoid control terminal, though I couldn't get access to it to measure that with the fan & shroud in place. I know disconnecting the batt neg would clear the ECU memory, but I don't understand why that would change the solenoid from clicking to not clicking (i.e. no voltage gettng to the solenoid control terminal).

Roc

[RocBar]

Concerning the ignition switch I pulled from the car (see pic in previoius post):
The switch appears to be in good mechanical shape. I did clean up the contacts a bit with fine emery paper. Not sure how to test the switch for electrical functioning. So I tested for continuity between the contacts inside the switch and each male connector terminal in the switch housing where the wiring harness plugs in. I found continutiy for all except the "S" terminal. I also tested for continuity between each of the male terminals. Again I found continuity between each terminal except for the "S" terminal where there was no continuity between the "S" terminal and any other terminal.

I don't know what should be expected with this test. Does the lack of continuity at the "S" terminal mean the switch is bad or is that the way it is supposed to work?

With the switch back in the car the no crank proplem persists.

Should I also pull the ECU and lock control modules to look for any issues like dirty / corroded terminals? What is the technique for pullnng the ECU? I've seen that volvo makes a special tool for this, but I've read that a flat bladed screwdriver can be used to move the purple locking tab where the ECU plugs in. But I haven't found any detail on doing so.

[scot850]

I never found or could see any obvious issue with my electrical portion of the switch when I had problems. One of the issues is you can't easily test it for internal wire failure as you can't see the contact wiring, and then if you look at the copper contact areas you can see wear marks in the copper. Not sure if those are enough to cause irregular or poor contacting. Also don't believe you will get instant failure. I would expect a random issue then permanent eventually.

When you mention the battery issue,have you checked the ground wires and the battery cables. These can break down internally and cause issues. There is also the issue of the b+ cable, the red woven smaller cable from the +ve side of the battery and it runs up to the kidney shaped main fuse box above the brake booster. If you open that buy popping the clips, check the end of the cable and the nut (at the front of the box) are bright and shiny. If they are dull then you may have an issue with the B+ cable failing. They fail out of sight under the connector where they come into the fuse box from below. Mine had totally melted and showed signs of shorting/burning. This is a known issue.

Neil.

[RocBar]

Neil,
You are correct about not being able to see the internal wiring, but I was thinking that the continuity testing I did would be indicative of something. I did burnish off the couple of wear marks that I could see.

The failue happend right after an instance with the door open chime not going off. Though that problem stopped just before the no cranking problem happened. It had never happened to me, but the wife told me after this latest instance, that it had happened to her a couple of times. She opened and closed the door a couple of times to make it stop. So from her reporting, that means there was an intermittant fault happening. I was thinking this was a door sensor issue, but Abscate said it could be due to to an ign switch fault.

I checked some of the ground connections, but not an exhaustive check. With the key in position II and jumping from the + batt terminal to the solinoid control spade terminal, the car does turn over. It didn't start though. Car is outside and it's raining a lot today. When it subsides, I'll give the Batt + wiring under the main fuse box a look.
Roc

[scot850]

Good Luck!