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So much sage advice comes from this forum that I'm sure an answer to a long-nagging issue will come from this. Dealer service told me that this is not an uncommon problem with 940s of this vintage, but no real "fix" was advised.
For roughly a year now, the SRS Warning light has been coming on in my '93 940. At first, the intermittent indicator would come on for a few minutes on startup and then go off. I wondered what the cause could be, but since it wasn't affecting anything I wasn't particularly concerned. Then I noticed that the indicator lights up, and all electrical power dims. The headlights and dashboard lights all cut down to about 50% power. After driving a while, the SRS indicator would turn itself off and full electrical power would return. I then noticed that the light was sapping enough power that the radio would turn off (presumably from lack of juice)and interior/exterior lighting was at about 40%, despite a brand new battery and dielectric-greased terminals a couple of months ago. I stopped for gas last night after driving about 20 minutes with the indicator light on from the time of startup, and the car didn't want to start back up. I am concerned that the alternator isn't charging the battery when this indicator light comes on.
My first thought was that the indicator light is "grounding out" somewhere, but since no fuses have been blown I think its unlikely that there is a short. Have any of you experienced a similar problem? Could this be because the pyrotechnic seatbelt devices need to be replaced? The dealer told me that the solution to similar problems that were reported to them has been to replace the ignition switch, but when they checked this on mine, they said that they didn't want to charge me $140 for the part and then labor if they weren't sure that this was the problem. Roughly translated, they knew I would pitch a fit if this didn't fix the problem-plus I think they are a little lazy. I don't place as high a value on my time as they do theirs, and don't mind testing a few things. Anyone have any suggestions or baseline electrical readings that I could compare to? Any advice appreciated.
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1993 Volvo 940
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