Weak Battery ? the original battery completely died on me in a town centre car park in early 1999 - I replaced it with a high-quality Halfords (re-badged Exide) battery after recommendation by the AA patrolman. On the basis that batteries last about 3-4 years it could be about due to fail, although all the rest of the electricals seem fine, it starts fine and there's no battery/charging warning lights showing. Will consider this though...

Ignition Switch ? I would have thought this would have affected more than just the dash instruments ??? Somebody once told me not to have a heavy keyring etc with my car keys (this was after problems with a non-Volvo) - I was quite sceptical at the time. I do have to admit I have about 12-15 keys (some of them quite big/heavy) and a quite large Wenger swiss army knife on my keyring: could this really cause such a problem ???

In the absence of further ideas I''l start by checking the battery condition and connections...

Regards.

Nick Pitfield.