Guys/gals-

'92 240 wagon 335,000 miles, manual tranny- well maintained. Starter was replaced with a genuine Volvo unit maybe 100,000 miles ago, or maybe 150,000- can't really remember.

Wednesday night, while I was dealing with fixing a misfiring cylinder on my wife's V90, my wife is driving the car. She gets home and says the low beams stopped working and she had to drive about 8 miles home "holding the high beam switch back" to see the road. I go to start the car to put it in the garage to replace the main headlight relay, and it won't start. Damn.

I replaced the headlight relay and the low beams are working again.

On to the no-start issue. Headlights, interior lights, dash lights, warning lights work fine- starter will not crank. I do not hear the solenoid clicking. Cleaned battery terminals- no difference. I tested the battery- 12.55 volts available at about 50 degrees ambient temp. 10 sec load test of battery with load tester indicates weak battery. Attempted to jump start the car without success- still will not crank. Checked voltage at starter service socket under hood- 12.5 volts when key is turned to start position and then falls. Jumper wire from battery to starter service socket would not bump starter.

Ordinarily, after all this, I'd assume the starter is toast. Maybe it is just coincidence that the starter failure happened to correspond with the headlight relay failure. I can replace the starter, but I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Any thoughts are welcome.

Why do they always break when the wife is driving?