Seems like all the transistorized "relays" in the volvos are made in the same fashion. I'm convinced they are bad out of the box; newness does not equal goodness, but Fosterization makes them better than new.

Stupid manufacturing decisions to save a nickel can ruin a product or even a brand. For all the years these relays were made and caused Euro cars to leave their occupants stranded, you'd think a change would have been made.

You'd think surface mount would be making products more reliable. Computers and monitors are. But I still have to disassemble brand new consumer "toys" and apply soldering iron with annoying frequency.

With apologies to Don Foster,
--
Art Benstein near Baltimore