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Properly done wiring harness modifications will not fail. Ever. A reasonably skilled person should be able to do them way better than the original wiring harness was ever made on any given serially made car. Believe me. The car will go to the junkyard, or the original harness will die, the mods will stay in tip-top shape.
You just have to do them properly. Properly being the key word here. Namely:
1. No connectors/sockets of any kind unless you buy a heavy duty "electronics"-grade connector (not the automotive junk they sell) and use multiple contacts for redundancy. In case of this mod, that means you can only use soldered connections.
2. Heat shrink tubing over all solder joints.
3. Using hookup wire with proper ratings (105 degrees C is a minimum).
4. In case of this modification, the relay should be a "double" type so that you can get two pairs of contacts in parallel for redundancy. Properly solder the wires to the relay contacts and put shrink-wrap over the connections.
When done like this, the thing most likely to fail is the seatbelt switch itself. The next thing somewhat likely to fail is the relay coil. I doubt the contacts will ever fail, as all they do is energize the starter solenoid so that's not such a big current.
Cheers, Kuba
PS. If you're buying from distributors like digikey.com or alliedelec.com, the connector's quality is typically indicated by the price. I.e. if a pair of connectors sells under $10, you probably don't want to use it on your "critical" mod. Good connectors are round, military-style connectors with weather seal option. If properly installed on the wiring, they will last forever. A 12-pin (12 "conductor") pair (socket + plug) typically sells for about $40 and up. That's the ballpark price for a decent connector pair. If you need say 24 pins in the connector at reasonably high currents (say 10A each pin), you're looking at $100 a pair or more.
If you save on connectors, you will pay in time, breakdowns and hassles later.
A quality connector will never (for practical purposes) have its pins or sockets "slide out" -- a typical nightmare with junky (ahem, "cost sensitive") automotive junk connectors. That's the sad truth. The typical connector in your Volvo (and almost any other) car probably costs about $2 to manufacture and is a good example of how not to design connectors... Obviously, nobody wants to pay $1000 just for connectors in his car, so we all have to live with "somewhat unreliable" "funky" "will-fail-in-5-years" connectors... I try to shy away from them and replace as soon as I get some pocket money saved.
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