What seemed like an inocuous dashboard message,"dipped beam bulb failure", turned out to be not only inaccurate but unreasonably costly. The fault is not the bulb, replaced but still no dipped beam; further investigation leading to a faulty electronic part, "ballast" ?, attached to the light unit and requiring a complete replacement at an estimated cost of £1150 +vat! Most likely cause is the ingress of water during recent downpour. Does this mean we can no longer drive in wet weather? And if we do how can a repetition of this be avoided?

Awaiting reply from Volvo asking what possessed a designer to come up with such a basic flawed system.

Any other incidences, comments and/or advice much appreciated.