95 T5R Dash warning lights

[erikv11]

This started sometime last week:

- When the key is off and out of the car, the red battery light is on.
- When the key is in position II, only some of the idiot lights turn on.
- When they car is running, the battery light is on, or may flash on and off with regularity, about once per second. A couple other lights get involved too, I didn't note which ones.

Other than the dash warning lights doing bizarre things, the car starts, drives and runs normally.

I've tried several things with the key off and that battery light on, to see if anything will turn it off, none of these did:

- disconnected the electrical portion of the ignition switch.
- removed all relays from that block up under the driver's side of the dash
- removed the 514 relay (?), the little blue one for central locking
- removed all relays from under the fuse box
- pulled each fuse, one at a time. Every one of them.

I also swapped speedometer clusters, no change. At some point during the swap trials the behavior stopped, with either cluster, but that was just for like 5 minutes and it is back to doing it no matter what.

The only thing that shuts off that light is if I disconnect the battery.

These threads seemed helpful so far:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=31322
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=50908
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=52682
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... =1&t=53786

I'm stumped and don't know where to turn next, any suggestions?

[Ozark Lee]

Have you checked the alternator? The way the alternator warning light is hooked up it lights about half of the idiot lights when it goes bad.

One other thing to check. I assume that you have an external amp in the R and if it is the amp that bolts up behind the radio by the heater core then you might want to check the wiring harness that goes to the center console where it goes by the amp. The edges of the amp are sharp and I had a similar problem with the Platinum that turned out to be a wire to the SRS trigger that shorted out on the case of the amplifier. It took me forever to find it.

...Lee

[timmybdaddyof3]

I am with lee on the alternator theory....as odd as it sounds I have seen several cases of "partial failure" with the same symptoms, and including things like the seatbelt chime randomly dinging.

they will test out at 13+ at idle, but when loaded or heat-soaked they fall on their face and drop to 11.x....the odd part is the dash mayhem continues regardless of alternator output. When we bench test them with an 80+ amp load they finally seem to die, and it is definitely more prevalent on Bosch alternators.

Glad you added the part about it going off when you disconnected the battery...kept me from being a smart a$$.....then again, if it runs fine, try pulling thee bulbs

[erikv11]

OK I will definitely get it tested, thank you both. And I'll dig around for nicked wires under the dash.

And I have to ask just to make sure you saw this comment:

- When the key is off and out of the car, the red battery light is on.

this could be an alternator problem?

[timmybdaddyof3]

Yeah, odd i know but i have also had one (and again a Bosch alternator) where the headlights would not shut off (would be at full brightness with key on switch off, and go to slightly dim when key and switch were both off)....I don't know how, couldn't explain why to the client, couldn't find a short, but loaded up the alternator with 80~90 Amps and it died; slapped in a new one and what started out looking like an electrical nightmare totally disappeared.

If you have it checked make sure they actually load test it - it can be done at autozone on the car if you get a halfway intelligent counter guy. Every time I have dealt with this the voltages look okay until you start stressing it...most of our alternators are 100 amp, if you have it tested that's what you are looking for

[erikv11]

Finally got back to it yesterday (Sunday) evening. Had Autozone test the alt, the guy barely knew how to work the tester but he said it flagged for a bad voltage regulator. He couldn't help me with testing under load, I suspect I would have to come back 8-5 M-F for someone skilled enough to do that.

But I went ahead and replaced the voltage regulator last night with the alternator in the car. The mystery light went out ... then I was busy running errands for work and home today, and the car showed no issues at all.

Thanks so much, you guys saved me a big headache of tracing phantom (nonexistent, I hope!) electrical gremlins.

I will eventually bench test the VR and post up the results, just for posterity.