Hi all,
I have some problem to start my car these days, and I really want to
pinpoint what the problem. So if you have some ideas, just left me
know, thanks a lot !

The car is a Volvo 850 wagon with 90K on it.
the car runs smoothly once it is started. But for the past 3 weeks, I
had quite a few times to have the car jump to start. Once it is
started, everything runs smoothly.

At first, it happened almost ever day, if I left car there for 4 hours,
I had to have it jumped. So I thought the battery was dead, and had it
replaced.
But somehow, it does not solve the problem completely.  For every 3-4
day driving, I had to have it jumped once.

So I did some test on the battery.
If I turn on the engine, and have it running for 1-2 minutes, the
voltage number that I reads from the this battery is 13.6.
If I turned on all the head-lights, A/C, and radio, with the running
engine, the voltage reads as  13.4.
Right after the engine was turn off, the voltage was 12.3, and the
morning that I had problem to start the car, the voltage reads as: 4.

I notice on my dashboard  there is bulb no longer works, the one for
the "clock" area. Other than that, all other bulbs works fine.

Another thing I want to ask is how to check the output from the
alternator. For this volvo, the alternator is under some other parts.
All I can see is a thin wire, and a group of wires joint together.

Btw, this car did some fender work about 5 weeks ago and I started to
have this battery problem 7 days after the car was delivered to me.

Thanks a lot for any tips !

CJ