Is it necessary to have a Bi-Fuel relay in my normal '02 V70 XC?
Just got my car back from the mechanic yesterday afternoon. It was in for a problem where it had CEL code P0016, was still running fine but then suddenly would just crank and not start.
After getting it back, it was running OK with a new issue I've never had before, that the indie mechanic could not solve. It's a delayed start issue that I'm going to get the Volvo dealer to look at. But I happened to discover the first time I went to use the front windshield wipers that they did not work at all. The rear wiper worked and both front and rear washers, but not the front windshield wipers. The mechanic had done extensive work correcting a no start problem where it would crank and not start, and in turn it had flooded the cylinders and created a no compression situation. A real mess. But back to the present, I found in the front fuse panel that there was no FST1 relay which says, "WIPER FRONT WASHER". There were relays in FST2 "BI-FUEL" and FST3 "FRONT WIPER, HIGH/LOW SPEED" and some others which all seem obvious.
Among other things that the indie mechanic had found under the hood that he fixed, in the passenger compartment he had replaced the antenna ring aka immobilizer in the steering column. I took the covers off of the steering column and everything was connected in there. Then on a whim, I tried moving the BI-FUEL relay to the WIPER FRONT WASHER position just to test my theory. My front windshield wipers started working. I thought, OK, that must be all there was to it, a relay in the wrong place. He didn't say he had removed any relays while working on the car but I sure didn't, and obviously there was a relay missing from position FST1. And I thought the missing relay was inadvertently moved from FST1 to FST2 position.
I then tried to start the car and it just cranked and never started. So my question is, is there supposed to be a relay in the Bi-Fuel socket FST2?
Note: even after the service that my independent mechanic did to get the car running, it wasn't totally right. It ran fine but the following issue he could not figure out. There is a check engine code (I don't have the code) and the car will crank for about a second and a half before there is a reading on the tach. Once the reading on the tach goes up from 0 to say 500 RPM, then the cranking engine will start almost immediately.
But after moving relay FST2 to FST1, with no relay in the Bi-Fuel position FST2, I could not get the car to start. I want to make sure I didn't do something to prevent the car from starting with no relay in the Bi-Fuel position. I moved the relay back from FST1 to FST2 in case the Bi-Fuel position needs the relay there, but it still won't start.
Before this latest issue with not being able to start the car, I had already called and made an appointment with the closest Volvo dealer next week to check out this issue with the hesitation in starting and also the CEL. But now my car won't start. The tach indication still starts out at zero and then goes up to say 500 RPM after it cranks for maybe a second and a half. But won't start.
Is it necessary to have a relay in the Bi-Fuel position? And if it is necessary, could I have possibly flooded the car? I don't smell gas but I gave up on cranking it any more.
I am anxious and would appreciate any help. At least if the Bi-Fuel relay doesn't belong there, and belongs in FST1 instead, then I know I simply have a no start issue and I didn't make anything worse. In terms of moving the relay, it just seemed like a logical conclusion that the relay had for some reason been moved from wiper to bi-fuel since my car is not bi-fuel and it was missing a relay in the wiper position.
Thanks in advance,
Tom
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