My '05 V70

[Tiggie]

Stance is much improved. Funny how slight changes like that make a large visual difference.

[87gtVIC]

Yes. Immediately agreed to it looking better.

[sly]

Even spacing around the wheel is preferred for myself as well. I can appreciate the stance life and lowriders, but some factory low for mpg stuff is just a little too low.

[Arquemann]

Yup, a small change makes a big difference. Also small wheels and big tires don't go with a low ride at all.
Also I'm returning the "quality" LEDs. Beam pattern is nice and they spread light wider better but they not any brighter than the standard halogens... They're also missing the hot spot in the middle of the beam, the thing that's supposed to light up the road far up. They're like shitty old projectors in terms of light.

Anyways, Volvo is doing a fucky wucky.

Since the fall has come and I've driven in the dark, I've noticed a couple times where the lights flicker faintly. Some times it's been so faint I've thought I was just seeing things.
On friday at one time the car didn't want to lock from the remote. I started the car, lights flickered alot. I shut it off and it locked just fine. Later it unlocked and started just fine too.

Today I moved the car in front of the garage to check on the leds and the alternator. Charging voltage seems fine, if a bit on the high side. Just idling there after sitting since friday evening it was at 14.7-14.8, after about 20min it was around 14.5-14.6. Also tried checking for AC ripple, which I'm not sure I did right. What I got was a bunch of numbers bouncing all over the place. Between 7 and ~1300 mV (I think). Which would be bad I guess.
After a while of oggling at the multimeter like an idiot, I shut off the car and swapped one of the led high beams back to a halogen. Turned the key on and had the lights on for a couple minutes to take a few pics and stare at the light pattern on the garage door. I noticed the LED high beam went out suddenly, battery had went flat in the few minutes I had the lights on. Starter would barely even groan. The fuck?
I had battery charger on it for like 10 minutes and she fired up without much fuss. Had to move the car from in front of the garage.

I dunno what the fuck is going on... Do I have a bad alternator? Flickering lights would say yes. Do I have a bad battery? Or both? Is the alternator killing the battery? This stupid thing can sit for a week and start, and today it's stone cold dead in an instant.
Guess I'll take the car to a battery / charging tester in a day or five. If it starts...

[friskyfrankie]

Intermittent parasitic draw?

[Arquemann]

Battery tested bad, surprisingly bad considering how well it has behaved. I popped in the new battery from dad's Pontiac and the lights don't seem to be flickering anymore.
Also redid the AC ripple test with a multimeter that I can actually read and I got about 70-110 mV, which is very good.

I guess I need a new battery, dad's gonna want his back. Atleast getting a new battery was the cheapest possible outcome in this issue. Alternators for these things ain't cheap. Though 353mm batteries aren't cheap either. Gonna try to get me a Biltema battery, they are the only ones I can find with a 3-year warranty, some even got 4 years.

Still entertaining the idea of getting leds for the high beams, maybe I should just go for the high-power ones to not get disappointed in terms of light output. That's what I get for trying to be responsible. Though my friend is still trying to scumbag me into putting his three 9" round aux high beams up front on the Volvo. It would be quite obnoxious, but that's kinda the point
Bummer is that they're all narrow beam pattern, which is nice if I want to light up the next kilometer of road, but I'd mostly like to see the ditches and sides of road better.