I have a 2002 Volvo S60. Sometimes it will not start in park. You wait a while and it will start as if nothing had happened. When this happens I have learned that it will start if I put it in neutral. So far I have been sold a starter with no relief. I think it might be something associated with either the Neutral Safety Switch or gear position sensor.
The odds of a six year old Bosch starter on a Volvo failing are extremely low. The odds of a neutral safety switch on your shifter failing or being out of adjustment are much better. The fact that you were able to start the car when you moved the selector to neutral pushes the probability of it being neutral safety switch related to up over 90%.
If you went in and asked for a new starter, that is one thing, but if a shop told you that you needed a starter, it sounds like they are probably incompetent or crooked or both. This is a sore point with me because a BMW dealer charged my daughter $700 for a starter that she did not need, and they knew that she did not need it at the time. Grrrr.
I agree. Don’t go back to that shop. They are obviously to lazy, or crooked, to even attempt to diagnose what is actually wrong. You can tell pretty quickly if the starter needs to be replaced or not, pretty sad.
It could be the neutral safety switch http://www.autozone.com/N,16400218/shopping/partTypeResultSet.htm or, it could be the linkage from the shifter to the switch. A decent, honest, shop will check both.
You could, somewhat, check if it’s linkage that’s a little out of adjustment by placing the gear selector in P and “stirring” the shift lever a little…then, try to crank.
Like the others, I despise professional shops which behave as if they are as ignorant of professional car repair as Dopey the Dwarf; Or, as greedy as a Wall Street broker/banker/CEO.