Volvo V70 Dies After 2 Minutes of Driving

Bad connection to the battery or bad Alternator,

Check and make sure the connection to the battery is good. And if you can get it running, if you have a meter check and see if you have at least 12.5 Volts charing the battery. If less than 12 volts and your connections are good, it may be a bad alternator

p911

P911's answer is very good. You may have a main circuit breaker overheating and tripping. Find it, and feel it's temperature when the car stops. If it is hot, you'll have to find out why. Something could be overloading the circuit, like a bad battery connection, a dying alternator, or something as simple as a loose alternator belt.

It is also possible you have a cracked buss connection inside the battery with intermittent connection due to heat and vibration.

I would check the easy stuff first. Have a load test done on the battery. You can also have the alternator tested at the same time as the load test is done.

Basically you have already had good advice:-

1) check for clean tight power cable connections

2) Have you swapped the battery out?

If your alternator is dying (or having a poor conection) you should see your battery light coming on. This is a classic running on battery situation, a couple of minutes is all you will get on battery alone.

If the alternator brushes are worn, this dodgy charging mode is what you will see. Change the brushes (often a five minute operation without needing take the alternator out and usually includes the regulator).

A dodgy alternator is not going to cause every thing to shut down suddenly as poster has described. Also the battery must have received enough charge to start the engine in the first place. it all points to a bad connection in or from the battery in the main wiring.

most likely regulator turn on all items that use power if car dies it is probly regulator

just hade my car die at garage ? prob reg

hope this helps

Your description points squarely toward a faulty electrical connection--and since the lights fail and engine dies, it seems likely to be in the main power wire that supplies the main fuse box. A failed alternator would not cause it to suddenly die and then later revive. A defective battery would not normally cause it to stop (it would continue to run so long as alternator was putting out enough to sustain everything turned on at the time.)

However, if the 'death' happens when idling, the alternator may not supply enough current to keep system voltage high enough. Wiring/connections do not typically 'repair' themselves and do not go away, but become more frequent and severe.

A poor connection at the battery or where the battery GROUND cable connects to the frame and engine or a defective internal connection in the battery will often cause this type of behavior

If you are right, that connection will often get very hot and can be found with a "wary" finger, usually!!

have had local mechanic check all electrical connections he gave it a good check and found nothing to report.he suggested it might be the ecu so have taken that out and given it to local electronics business to see if any obvious fault such as dry joint.if they cant find anything will have to send to specialists at no doubt vast expense!!

thanks for all your help and thoughts on the matter. will keep you posted.

This site may help.

The breaker #37 in the picture is marked in two places, check for the correct location. On the site, a faulty switch is overloading the breaker. Good luck.