The check engine light came on my wife's '99 NA V70, but the guy at Advance said there was no code. He did clear the light. Wat's going on here?

The car wouldn't start in the morning (33 degrees) so I jumped it. It started and ran well the rest of the day without problems. The battery had some of that fuzzy stuff growing around the terminals and the Advance guy said that could cause surface drain of charge. He cleaned it and sent me on my way. Any suggestions? Thanks.

There was a code, just the AA guy didn't know how to read it. You cannot 'turn off' the CEL without clearing a code, so he cleared all codes and the light went out.

I suggest you get a decent code reader, your car is old enough to probably start to throw codes - especially emmissions related stuff.

Of course, when the AA guy disconnected the battery to clean the posts and wires, that would also have cleared any outstanding codes. But I suggest not doing that until you know what the code is, it could make the situation worse in a week or two.

Klaus
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Proud owner of a 220S. If I had more room, I would have more Volvos.

Thanks for the advice. What readers do you recommend? I can reset the service lights on my '99 with out a reader and I know my ABS module is going to need rebuilding soon, so I don't need a fancy one. But I hope to upgrade to a later V70 in a couple of years.

The newer models need to be CAN software compatable. Most are, and will still work with the 1999.
You can do a search here for 'scanner', but then you should go to Google and scan for 'volvo scanner' and look up each manufacturer and look for the models/years that they cover. It is imperative that you do your homework before ordering or buying locally.
Some cheap models just show pass/fail, whatever good that does...

Klaus
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Proud owner of a 220S. If I had more room, I would have more Volvos.