My wife has a 2003 Volvo, V70 wagon. The dashboard instrumentation panel started acting funny. First the tach would freeze then the speedo, then everything would blink and shutt off - dead. This went on for a number of weeks until I could’nt take her winning about it - so I checked it out myself. Sure enough - she was telling was right, it was acting weired.
I’m a marine electrician so I see this stuff all the time, I crawled under the dash to find the loose connector - but I could see no connector, I used my small hand held mirror - no connector. I tried to remove the instrument panel - impossible.
So I took it to the Volvo garage, told the service writer the problem, he smiled and said “you have a real problem, your dash board needs to be replaced”. I said “are you crazy, I’ve taken instrument panels out before”. The service writer next to him said “don’t feel bad, this is the third one this month”.
Have you guys at car talk ever heard of this problem, 3 Volvos in one month, the dealership is near the Seabrook Neuclear Power Plant in NH - maybe that’s the problem.
Since Toyota is in the recall business I think Volvo will fly under the radar with this issue.
hamahed