Mark: Hi, it's Mark. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC Canada, Vancouver's best auto service experience, and we're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So today's guest is a 2008 Volvo XC7. What was going on with this vehicle?
Bernie: This vehicle had a couple issues, but one of them was the headlight was not working. Did a little examination on it and found that the wiring harness inside the headlight assembly was basically fraying, broken apart. All the insulation was coming off. Wires were not connecting properly. Short circuits were occurring and needed wiring repairs.
Mark: So was there any indication on the dashboard, check engine, anything like that saying, Hey, there's a problem.
Bernie: There probably was, I wasn't the tech who actually worked on it, but probably would be because Volvo, for many years, like going back like 50 years has had like warnings on the dash when light bulbs don't work. So they've had a pretty sophisticated monitoring system and I'm quite sure that there would've been a warning saying this particular light wasn't working.
Mark: Awesome. Let's go to the map here.
Bernie: Yeah, let's go have a look at some pictures.
Mark: So there's our vehicle.
Bernie: Yep.
Mark: Not bad looking for an 18-year-old vehicle.
Yeah. Not bad looking. And it's in really good shape too. So you know, it's what you get when you take care of a car. Can last a while.
Mark: So I'm assuming this is the problem.
Bernie: This is the right headlight assembly. And that's a picture of the light assembly installed in the car. These, by the way, are nice and easy to remove. There are many manufacturers that make their headlights difficult to get at and thus expensive to repair. But this one here, you can pull the headlight assembly out, change the bulbs pretty quickly.
Mark: And I'm gonna assume we got our next picture of is some of the problems that's going on.
Bernie: Yeah, so this is the wiring harness inside the headlight that we took and replaced. And if you look closely, you can see that there's some wires and then there's a bunch of frayed wires. Frayed wires, broken wires. We may have cut a couple of them just to take everything out for ease of removal. But the basic problem is you can see that these wires are bare. I believe someone had actually been in there before and put some tape on some of them, but really ineffective at this point because the insulation is broken down. It just disintegrates. You wiggle a wire and it just snaps off. So there's nothing you can do, but replace the wiring harness.
Mark: How common an issue is this on vehicles?
Bernie: Not that common, but we do it from time to time on certain models and makes there are various Volvo over the years has actually had some wiring issues and the cause of this is basically the wiring is just not of the standard. For some reason, they must use wiring that's crappy. That's basically the bottom line. There must be a run of wiring that they buy that is just not up to snuff for insulation. There's a bit of heat inside the light assembly, but really not much compared to what you would get on an engine.
Yeah, just clearly just poor quality. Interestingly enough, we looked at the left hand side and the wiring was all in good shape. Not sure why this side went and severe. Not just the yellow wire, but the black wires, the amber wires, all the wires are basically of the same quality and coming apart.
Mark: Yeah. Things that make you go huh.
Bernie: Yeah.
Mark: Just to quickly show, this is the assembly, this is the back of the assembly out of the vehicle.
Bernie: That is the back out of the vehicle. And that has the new wiring harness in it. You can see the wires are fully insulated and covered. The right on the right hand side, you can see a sort of green piece, that is one of the headlights, I believe that's the low beam. And on the other side that would be the high beam or vice versa.
Mark: So those are the bulbs that can be changed?
Bernie: Those are the bulbs, yeah. And they unclip from the wiring harness. You just twist them out and change them. And as I said, the light assembly removes quite easily, the cover comes off the back. It's really not difficult to do on a Volvo, fortunately. But the wiring harness is quite a pain to change because, you can see it's all tucked and looped around inside there. Most of all that wiring that we showed you earlier is not, you can't even see it because it's hidden away.
Yeah, there was another close up there. I think you were looking at of some of the bad wires.
Mark: So is the turn signal was also part of this wiring?
Bernie: Turn signals there, the side marker light. Pretty much everything. It didn't look like this car has fog lights. So pretty much all the lighting on the front is in these two light assemblies.
Mark: I don't know if there's a light there or not. Can't tell.
Bernie: No, that's not a light, that's a vent. So it's all inside there.
Mark: And once changed? Everything's happy. One eye's brighter than the other.
Bernie: Yeah, they're both the same. Yeah.
Mark: So there you go. If you're looking for service for your Volvo, let me ask you this, actually, before we jump into that. Volvos big reputation for lasting a long time. I've owned a Volvo that wasn't very good. What about this kind of generation 2008, 18 years old?
Bernie: Yeah. They're pretty good. I remember when this design of Volvo came in. These are ones are weird because it's a six cylinder engine that has the belt, most engines have the front crankshaft pulley and that's where the belt and the accessories are all like the air conditioning. These ones, they did it differently. They actually run the accessories off the backside of the engine over top of the transmission. Weird design. Complicated. I remember actually when it came out and they don't make it anymore. I guess I'm getting old because things have changed. Anyways, bottom line, they're pretty reliable. Things do go wrong. They're expensive to fix, but generally a good car.
Mark: So there you go. If you're looking for service for your Volvo in Vancouver, BC Canada, the guys to talk to are at Pawlik Automotive. You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com. You can book your appointment right there on the website. They'll get back to you. They'll check and find out just verbally what's going on. They'll get ready for your appointment. Or you can call them, (604) 327-7112. Hard to believe in this day and age of the banks who don't answer ever the phone or the phone companies. Pawlik Automotive will look after you. Thanks so much for watching and listening. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark, and thanks for watching.
