Brake Failure Stop Safely - Volvo S40 2004/2005

On Tuesday the 28th I went out to my car and didn't quite turn the key for long enough to start the car and it set off the error codes it sometimes throws up. "Immobilizer See Manual" and something about the ABS brake system. It wouldn't accelerate more than 5 miles an hour around the parking lot. It also did the usual "System Engine Service Required" and "Reduced Engine Performance" and "Brake Failure Stop Safely." It seems to do this about once a year but it's highly annoying. I did get it to restart but then the air conditioning, electronic windows and wipers wouldn't work. Then after running for a few minutes all of those kicked in.

Kevin came to meet me at the office and it became driveable and I followed him home in his car. The next morning it didn't have any error codes and I figured it would be fine for another year. Then as soon as I pulled into the office parking lot it said Brake Failure Stop Safely again but it was accelerating so I just drove it to the dealership. They didn't start looking at it until 4pm and didn't have enough time to figure out what was wrong with it so I ended up picking it up at 5 so I could go get the kids and all they said was "It has a lot of fault codes." No kidding. Brilliant.

Again the error codes were now reset so it was driving fine. Then on Thursday when I had both kids in the car and was trying to get on the highway in a construction zone it said Brake Failure Stop Safely again and wouldn't accelerate so I pulled over as far as I could but it was really scary as semi's are flying by me at 65 mph in a construction zone where people are trying to get on and merge and could easily just run into the back of me. Again I called Kevin and he came over and I had had it turned off the entire time (which by the way made the hazards NOT work so even more dangerous).

When he arrived the car of course restarted and just said Engine System Service Required but was driveable and fine so I went on. I've made an appointment to take it in tomorrow morning and I told them....

Keep it for awhile so you can figure this out. Tell me how much it's going to be to fix it. I will then decide if I am fixing it or getting rid of it.

This has happened at least four times before, so now a total of six times. I don't think I should have to pay to fix this since it has clearly been an issue for a long time and started while it was still under warranty.
21 January 2009
04 June 2008
11 October 2007
13 September 2007

At this point I'm not really thinking about getting another Volvo. Although I must say we have not had any problems with Kevin's XC90. Hopefully I didn't just jinx us.