troyhyde

.....regarding your hard starts. Try and compare the cranking speed of the starter with another similar Volvo. See if your car seems to be cranking slightly slower. If the starter doesn't spin fast enough on these cars it will not throw a strong enough crank signal to get to the ECU and back out to the distributor. You'll get an RPM signal headed to the computer but nothing returning to the ignition stage.

Bought a car a while back that was in good shape but nobody could make it start. They tried EVERYTHING (new ECU, new sensors everywhere, new ignition, etc....). I took it on as a challenge. After a bit of messing around, the solution was simply replacing the starter. I suppose a very poor set of battery cables would create a similar situation.

This presumes you have fuel available....