I'm French and I purchased a used (2001) Volvo V70 which was initially buyed in Switzerland, and where diagnosis are displayed in German, so for me it's often a painful task to understand what the messages mean.
I inquired for a possible software language exchange, but the brand representant informed me it will cost more than 300 € just for that! So I gave up...
Google translator is of little help, because (as I finally discovered through my numerous attempts):
- some of the words displayed are only abbreviations
- some other ones are not words by themselves but concatenation of words
- sometimes they even are concatenation of abbreviations
- and generally speaking Google doesn't have great skills about vehicle maintenance :-)
Nevertheless I could gradually understand most of the messages I got. But today I keep totally stuck with this "KÜHLMITTLE NIEDR MOTOR ABSTELLEN". For now here is what I could analyze:
- KÜHL = "fresh"
- MITTLE remains totally unknown
- NIEDR might stand for NIEDRIG = "slow" or "weak"
- MOTOR ABSTELLEN is the only obvious part: "stop motor"... but:
- which motor? Is it the vehicle engine or any of the numerous other motors for air conditioning, rearview mirrors, seat adjustment, and so on?
- is it an injunction to stop it, or an information about (KÜHLMITTLE NIEDR) condition might lead motor to stop by itself?
- and it worth mention that the message gets displayed only just after starting the engine, then disappears and doesn't ever come back - moreover, it's not "archived" like are other ones as long as the error condition remains true (e.g. washer tank empty)
From that I have notably considered two very different meanings:
- the air conditioning motor gets weak, so it might happen that it stops
- the cooling system of the vehicle engine is weak, so I should stop the engine!
But I remain totally uncertain of everything...
A French in a Swedish car from Switzerland with German error messages
...that sounds like a setup for a joke.