I just bought a practically pristine 91 Volvo DL sedan. Engine runs great except it sounds a bit rough at the first turn over, and then is purring great. Everything looks clean inside (engine looks brand new!)

145,000K

only problems ive found, Im HOPING are fuses. I'm a college student, so I've never changed fuses (yet).

Problems:

Windshield wipers don't work out all, I found out today in the rain.
Dome light is out
Shift/gear lights are out
dashboard lights=out
right hi beam is out.

all other lights and turn signals are fine. One thing of note, is it does have a cd system and speakers that work great, could this be stealing some power from the other things?

Does this sound fuse or electrical?

Thanks!

Sounds like you got yourself a nice car that should give you a lot of safe, economical miles ahead.

It is surprising that so many electrical things are out all at once. '91s are not prone to electrical problems other than the crank position sensor, which has probably already been replaced. (If it hasn't, and you suddenly loose spark, that's almost certainly the problem)

It is unlikely that the stereo is causing any problem, though I suppose someone could have done some damage when they were installing it.

Back to your problems:

The headlight and the shifter light are most likely burned bulbs, because those bulbs fail fairly regularly.

Before you do anything else, do a little routine maintenance on your fuses.

Carefully remove each fuse one at a time, and clean the tips of the fuses and the insides of the tabs that hold it in place. A small brass brush works great, steel wool is OK. Use whatever you have that will clean off corrosion. Check that the tips of the fuses are not corroding away. The fuses in my '90 are starting to disintegrate. I need to replace all of them.

Look around the fuse box to see if there is any evidence that the stereo installer cobbled anything up trying to get high amps to an audio amplifier.

After that, if you still have electrical problems, go down to Radio Shack or Sears or Harbor Freight and buy a cheap analog Volt/Ohm meter. That is all you need to check for continuity in bulbs, fuses, and wires, and to check for voltage at light sockets and plugs. Do some diagnostics on the misbehaving components, and if you can't figure out what is wrong, get back to us with what you find, and we will help you all we can.

Check to make sure that you have tail lights. There are warning lights to tell you if a brake light bulb is out, but on most cars, if all the tail lights are dead, the dash lights go out as well so you know that something is wrong.

You can do this!

Happy Bricking!

P.S. Why do you refer to it as a DL? That designation didn't exist in 1991. If your car says DL on the back, someone has replaced the trunk lid with an older trunk lid.

Thanks!

It actually doesn't say DL on the trunk, I'm just used to my dad's old 240 DL, so I called it that...

I replaced 3 of the fuses tonight. Numbers 2 (16A), 15, and 16 (8A) ceramic fuses.

Still nothing, I'll try the bulbs within the next couple of days.

The lights aren't as big of a concern to me as the wipers, especially since storms have been hitting my area.

Tail lights work fine, as do the hazard lights.

License plate bulb is also out.