Volvo No Audible Alarms
 

Hello,

2002 Volvo VNL not getting any audible alarms. Was told by Volvo dealer it was likely the instrument cluster/bad board. Anyone been through this conundrum?
Where is the buzzer located? Is it actually in the cluster? Thank you.

Terry

You have to resolder the boards. There's 4 boards at least with about 20 pins on each. My guess is close to half of them will be cracked. Just resolder them all, don't bother buying new boards they'll have the same problem.

Thanks Allan. I will look into it. Do you know if a special tool is required to disconnect the air lines to the gauges?

No special tool required, just be careful. All you need to take the cluster out is a pair of snips and a small torx. Don't forget when putting it back together to make sure the gauges are in the right spot, and to put zip ties on the wires at the back. You'll see what I mean.

It's going to take a few hours. Might as well fix all the lights while you're back there too. There should be spares in the cluster that aren't used. I hope you're good at soldering.

Well I am pretty good at sweating copper pipe if that will help. I have done some electrical soldering, but electronic will be a challenge for sure.

Thanks again. Probably won't get to it right away, but I will let you know the result.

I had a lot more issues than you do. A lot of the lights on the bottom didn't work, the fuel gauge didn't work, I was getting random "STOP IMMEDIATELY" messages, quite a few issues. All were solved with resoldering. I've been lucky with the computer printout, I haven't had an issue with it. Apparently that's rare for such an old Volvo (1999).

I found the problem. I am almost tone deaf for the high pitched squeal of the alarm. They are working fine. (Well fine for young ears that didnt go to a bunch of Who concerts in the early 70's)

I am looking into wiring up some type of remote lower frequency buzzer with a little more db output.

What computer printout are you referring to? An ECM dump?

Thanks

The computer display, I don't know why I called it a printout.