V70 1999 I was driving along and the car shuts off. Instruments on the dash went bananas.Now have a p1618 code.

Ajax3 · Post by **Ajax3** » 11 Jan 2025, 09:44

Charged the battery and put the car on a trailer. After I got it home and charged the battery. The arrow on the dash is flashing. The car wants to start off in high gear. Alternator is not charging but on warning light for that.

Post by **foggydogg** » 11 Jan 2025, 10:47

Might be bad grounds, start chasing those down. Less likely is a wonky diode in the alternator.

Post by **volvolugnut** » 11 Jan 2025, 11:01

Nothing like a car dying while driving to spike your anxiety. Make SURE you have a fully charged battery before starting testing. These cars do not like low voltage.
volvolugnut

Caesium · Post by **Caesium** » 13 Jan 2025, 06:25

I had a similar symptom of a flashing PNP arrow when the battery cables in my 850 (the six small ones that come from the fuse box) were not connected correctly. However I also had a no start condition. I would check your cables going to the battery terminals, which can go bad on these cars with time.

Post by **scot850** » 13 Jan 2025, 17:13

As suggested, check the grounds are not corroded, battery leads are not showing signs of corrosion, the terminals and connectors are clean.

Have a careful look at the B+ cable as suggested as well. It hides in the kidney shaped box mounted in front of the brake booster.

Open the lid and check the brass colored nut at the front corner of it. Use a flashlight and look down past the nut at the wiring below. These wires like to corrode and get hot, shorting to ground. Mine were bad! I have done some digging, and here is the thread on the subject:

viewtopic.php?p=283295&hilit=B+cable#p283295

Neil.

Post by **foggydogg** » 14 Jan 2025, 14:08

Ajax3 wrote: ↑11 Jan 2025, 09:44 Charged the battery and put the car on a trailer. After I got it home and charged the battery. The arrow on the dash is flashing. The car wants to start off in high gear. Alternator is not charging but on warning light for that.

There is a large ground low on the block, hard to see unless the splash shield is off. The 850 cars had issues with the bundle of wires going under the air cleaner mentioned above.
Not charging may just be grounding, or the alternator itself, obviously. Might be hard to find anybody who can test it on the Peninsula though.
Ditto finding one used.
And welcome to our little group therapy camp.

Post by **abscate** » 15 Jan 2025, 05:38

The 1999 models were the first with a lot of electronic and CANBUS stuff and they hate low bus voltage to anything. I once drove one back from Rhode Island with a battery on its last legs, with a great alternator, and each time I used the high beams, the ABS faulted and chirped and gave me an ABS code.

Get a voltmeter and start checking the battery voltage at the two posts firsts, then looking at the voltage at each major point of the engine to see if there are losses. Hold the negative voltmeter probe at the battery to see if there are ground losses.

You have inspired me to create a thread of all of these major checkpoints and document it here, along with voltage measurements on a well-running 1999 model

Topic made sticky to remind me to get this done

Oly850 · Post by **Oly850** » 01 Feb 2025, 15:30

So lots of good answers here, but the very first thing I'd do is check the fat black negative cable from the battery to the body. There's a bolt there that holds the cable to the body on the inside of the fender, near the battery. Take it out, examine judiciously. Is it shiny & new, or is the body there all green and gross? Get some sandpaper, or your wife's squishy nail file and clean both around the bolt hole and both sides of the business end of the cable. Install cable, tighten bolt. Might as well check the other end of the black cable on the battery while you're at it. Install battery end of cable. Does everything work? If so, get a can of your favorite spray paint and give that connection inside the fender a little spritz of paint so it won't rust. The bright colored paint will make you smile the next time something goes south. Buy your wife a new nail file.

Post by **wizechatmgr** » 10 Feb 2025, 12:13

Also check the smaller cable that comes off the positive terminal. This handles everything except the starter if I'm remembering correctly.

Do you have a battery hold down in place? When I didn't, said cable would loosen on the terminal and I'd end up with everything going lights out & dead.