Delayed start when cold.

[abscate]

Yes, those voltage drops are way too high.

[dj_v70]

Best way to troubleshoot at this point is to use jumper cables.

Run one from negative battery post to engine ground.

Run second from pos battery post to starter main post.

Does that turn starter when key in pos 3? If so, remove pos jumper cable and try using just neg cable. If both jumpers run starter but neg cable doesn’t ... that means you are right, something is wrong with pos cable wiring.

[clarkerussell]

OK, so I bought a new OEM (not Volvo brand) positive cable from FCPEuro and it arrived today. The battery connector looks like a P.O.S. cast connector from harbor freight. Its sort of hard to tell from the pics, but the casting of the connector is pretty rough and the inside of the connector looks like it'd have a hard time making a good connection to the battery post. Also, the whole thing is plated in a shiny coating. Is this the quality of the factory part as well?

Surely there has to be a better option out there. At this point, I'm thinking that I want to just build my own...

What the item looks like at FCP:

open-uri20150702-13283-el15d9.jpg (68.37 KiB) Viewed 920 times

What the part actually looks like:

[RickHaleParker]

I wager that you will find a lot of corrosion under the insulation of the positive battery cable. This is most often happens near the ends of the cable. You could take a hard back razor blade, slit the end of the insulation and take a peek.

[erikv11]

OK, so I bought a new OEM (not Volvo brand) positive cable from FCPEuro and it arrived today. The battery connector looks like a P.O.S. ...

This has been posted about a few times before, starting several years ago. It is little consolation but just know that others have been fooled by this parts purchase. In fact you can buy the part from Volvo and they will send you the same POS! There is no true factory replacement for the positive cable because it is integrated into the engine wiring harness - you would have to replace the entire harness.

If the positive cable is as bad as your measurements suggest, then as Rick mentioned the trouble is almost always at the cable end, which will therefore be heating up after 10 or 15 minutes of running the engine. Tons of posts about this. Just feeling to see if the cable warms up is one very easy, non destructive and informative test. Yours should get hot quickly based on the measurements. If it doesn't heat up, then either the problem is elsewhere in the cable (unusual) or somewhere else (seems unlikely here). You could also feel along the cable, if there is a corroded spot where resistance is high it will get hot there.

If you want to replace the POS cable and build or buy a better, generic one, again do a search as that route has been well visited and well documented in this forum. Look for posts by user tryingbe he did it really well, or there are some others.

Note that because the old cable is part of the harness you can't remove it easily, so in replacement you end up with an old cable still hanging out under there. With that in mind, you can also put in the new POS and add your old one to it in parallel as an ugly but effective kludge. You double up the lug connections at the starter (yes, there is ample room) and then run a short, thick lugged cable (FLAPS) from the old battery end to the new one. Wrap the exposed parts of the old end well to avoid shorts and stash it under/near the air intake tube.

[clarkerussell]

OK, so I bought a new OEM (not Volvo brand) positive cable from FCPEuro and it arrived today. The battery connector looks like a P.O.S. ...

This has been posted about a few times before, starting several years ago. It is little consolation but just know that others have been fooled by this parts purchase. In fact you can buy the part from Volvo and they will send you the same POS! There is no true factory replacement for the positive cable because it is integrated into the engine wiring harness - you would have to replace the entire harness.

If the positive cable is as bad as your measurements suggest, then as Rick mentioned the trouble is almost always at the cable end, which will therefore be heating up after 10 or 15 minutes of running the engine. Tons of posts about this. Just feeling to see if the cable warms up is one very easy, non destructive and informative test. Yours should get hot quickly based on the measurements. If it doesn't heat up, then either the problem is elsewhere in the cable (unusual) or somewhere else (seems unlikely here). You could also feel along the cable, if there is a corroded spot where resistance is high it will get hot there.

If you want to replace the POS cable and build or buy a better, generic one, again do a search as that route has been well visited and well documented in this forum. Look for posts by user tryingbe he did it really well, or there are some others.

Note that because the old cable is part of the harness you can't remove it easily, so in replacement you end up with an old cable still hanging out under there. With that in mind, you can also put in the new POS and add your old one to it in parallel as an ugly but effective kludge. You double up the lug connections at the starter (yes, there is ample room) and then run a short, thick lugged cable (FLAPS) from the old battery end to the new one. Wrap the exposed parts of the old end well to avoid shorts and stash it under/near the air intake tube.

Thank you for taking the time to respond, I do appreciate it. It's good to know, but disappointing, that the Volvo part is not any better.

I don't mind the idea of the new cable running outside the factory loom, I just wish there was a better option for the battery terminal connection, especially given the high cost...

[abscate]

The battery post is soft lead and will nicely mash down and make a good electrical connection with that steel clamp when tight. You can check it by turning on your headlights, about a 10 amp draw, then measuring voltage at the post amd then at the fuse box post and comparing the voltage drop. 0.1 V or so is ok.

[clarkerussell]

I decided to go forward with the new cable to be safe. I also removed the old starter and had it tested at O'Riley's, and it seems to be fine, but it is the original starter on a 20 year old car with 285K miles. Does it make sense to proactively change it out?

It's not terribly expensive for a rebuilt Bosch unit (about $100 after core return), but I hate throwing money away if it's not needed.

Any thoughts on that?

[abscate]

If it is working well, leave it alone.

That Bosch remanufactured unit is not as good a starter as OEM - rebuild were outsourced overseaas and QC is not good.

[dj_v70]

You were having an issue with 1V differential between battery and starter post during cranking, was this solved by the new cable?

If you still have a problem with starter and you are seeing 12+V across starter pos post and starter case while cranking, replace or rebuild starter. Doesn't matter what auto parts store tells you. You either replace the starter, use lighter engine oil or live with it.

I don't believe in proactively replacing parts that aren't broken unless they have very bad failure statistics associated with them. If I did, I'd just replace the whole car:)