99 S80: Major electrical failure. Please help?

[robyr]

Thanks much for the pointers. I am having my CEM codes checked by a Volvo specialist that just so happens to be up the street from me tomorrow morning, and I think then I might have a better grasp of the issues here. I am pretty bummed though, because now I am broke, and I have no second car to fall back on. Hopefully these guys won't screw me too bad, but I have been fighting this all weekend, and I gotta be at work this week. I'll update tomorrow with the shops findings.

[JDS60R]

This is all stuff you can do on your own. Being broke is when I learn the quickest.

[robyr]

I know I could do it, but I work nearly an hour away, and I simply cannot miss any time at work. I probably would be able to do this pretty quickly if I had a car to borrow in the meantime, but alas, that is not in the cards.

Before my current job, I had no other want than to work on cars. Unfortunately right now I need transportation more than a toy. I think right now I am just upset that I spent 3000 dollars and have an undrivable car. It took a lot of my ambition out of me to go from a perfectly working vehicle to unusable in less than 12 hours I guess.

I certainly won't pay a shop to do the actual repair however, simply diagnosis of the issue at hand. I just hope this doesn't make me regret selling my Z.

[JDS60R]

I understand

Sometimes a neighbors second car is a cost effective option to a rental. Either way you have to get to work. I had a friend drive me in for almost a month but I bought coffee and a donut each morning for him. It had a recently rebuilt motor explode . I also bought that car knowing it ran well and the motor was recently rebuilt. Took about 4 days after purchase for it to explode. It was a 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle. I built the motor myself and it was a little monster. If I knew about turbo's back then I would have been in trouble.

Good Luck - talk to you soon
John

[JDS60R]

Just had a thought.

I never asked who you purchased this from. Most states have laws for cars that are under 100K miles. If youpurchased it from a dealer you may have some recourse. If you purchased it "as is " from a person we can keep on diagnosing.

[robyr]

It was as-is, but from a small time dealer. The craigslist type. Hes a very nice guy though, and legitimately had no issues out of the vehicle during the 3 months he was driving it.

One thing that keeps popping up in my searches has been the alarm module, which seems to cause similar/the same symptoms. Since there is a bad strut on that side of the car, I am wondering if it hasn't gone dead from the vibration. There is a high pitched noise coming from the front end of the car when the key is turned to the number one and two postions as well as when the car is shut off, but only for a few seconds then. We shall see in the morning when I have this shop read the codes for me.