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For years I was only driver of my car, my wife drove occasionally to pick up large packages or a carpool. During that time, my transmisson would slip, it was nothing that would make me completely panic, but after reading different reviews I decided to have a transmisson service. This is a big deal because Volvo advertised lifetime transmission fluid (sounds stupid, but I was following the service advisor). In the last year, my daughter was learning to drive and the prefect car to learn how to drive is an eight year old wagon, my V70. My transmisson went crazy, it began to jump out of gear, hesitate when shifting and pause when going from reverse to first gear. I actually put the car up for sale because I did not want to get stuck with a car that would not move. During that time, I stopped letting my daughter drive the car and my wife refused to drive it. After a week of me driving the car, the transmission bug seemed to disappear. Through deductive reasoning, I have concluded if you have mult-drivers the transmission wizards inside the V70 transmisson go crazy and the car acts like it is on drugs. In simple terms, the transmission adjust to your driving habits, if you have multi-drivers like I did, it creates problems while it attempts to find a consistant pattern from one driver.
No scientific data to support this theory, but my car is acting normal since I am the only driver. Advice: I would consider trying to drive the car with only one driver and little to no traffic for several days. Use your normal driving habits each time you drive after a few days you may notice a difference in your transmissons performance. Might not work for you, but it save me well over $30K , the cost to replace my car .
it is called the adaptive driving. Mine went absolutely going bezerk when someone else driving my 01 V70 T5
When I drive the car , he is all fine and dandy
Your can get this adaptive driving software remove if you wish by the dealer , of course at a cost of outrageous $$
Good luck. Change that transmission oil on a regular basis and perhaps that will save the transmission longer
Took my Volvo for a spark plug replacement and they left the eye hook and pretended it was not their fault for not putting the eye hook back in the car.
I am done with Union Park Volvo/ BMW/ Jaguar
I continue to change the transmission oil and use the correct oil (Mobil 3309). For each oil change, you only take out 3.5 quarts so after 10 or so trans oil changes that I have done the fluid is still coming out slightly dirty. Despite all the transmission oil changes, the car still seems to disengage.
I have taken the car to Volvo and they did a TCM update which did not help. Also there were no codes in the system. They charged me $250 for this.
I have also taken the vehicle to a transmission shop and they said this was not a transmission issue since at times it drives totally normal (shifts beautifully). Transmission shop said it was a throttle positioning module (ETM) issue because it is drive-by-wire and he said there was a Technical Service Bulletin (All-Data) that described the symptoms like they experienced with my car.
I have also taken the car to an independent automotive shop. Their diagnosis was that the ETM had an ohm reading of 320 ohms, which was way out of spec. The spec they said was 1.5 to 3.5 ohms.
I took the car back to Volvo after the appointments at the transmission shop and independent auto shop. Volvo once again put it on their scope and no codes came up in the computer. The also drove the vehicle and said it was the transmission that was the issue. Their quote for a new trans was $6000.
I have been trying to drive the car as much as possible and recently my approach has been to drive it with a very slow accelaration method, meaning only push on the gas as little as possible as slow as possible to get up to speed. I drove this way for 2 days and the car did not acted up and go into this disengage mode.
Also the disengagement symptoms almost never happens when the car is cold - 95% of the time the car shifts normally and stays in gear when it is cold. Also the disengagement happens more in the city at low speeds versus freeway speeds. One time I drove on the freeway for 20 miles and was driving very aggressively with the gas - coasting to 60 mph, hard accelerate to 70, coasting to 50 hard acceleration to 60 and did this for a good 20 miles and absolutely no disengagement of the transmission occurred during this time. But once I slowed down and got off the freeway, the car acted up and disengaged. 95% of the time when getting off the freeway and coming to a stop and then starting again, the trans disengages.
Any input to these symptoms would be most helpful. Thanks!
I was driving on a through street in Madison, 30 mph speed limit and a bit hilly. Going up one of the hills at 25-30mph, I felt it "gear-hunting" for a couple seconds, after which it settled into 3rd. Didn't think anything of it until I got to the top of the hill, and it stayed in 3rd. I put it in manual mode and upshifted to 4th, which worked. BUT... when I went back to D, it shifted back into 3rd even though I was doing between 35-40mph on flat road. So back to manual mode and forced 4th again.
A mile or two later, I came to a red light. Put it back into D, and it has shifted without incident ever since.
The car has almost 97K miles on it, and the extended warranty expires at the end of the month. Is it worth leaving with them for a day to see if they can duplicate the problem and better troubleshoot it? Anyone else had this happen, and what were the eventual results?
Once you're past 100K with anything, you kinda take your chances.
YOu got your info wrong...
It's the Neutral Stop features on 2001's that can be removed...most likely at high mileage it will do no good, as the damage is done.
The adaptive driving cannot be removed...it's a process to adjust the transmission post server or software upgrade...and then it also continually changes (adapts) to a driving style to smooth out shifting...I to noted different (hard shifts) after my wife had ad the car...
http://www.hileymazdavw.com/VehiclePrintHandler.ashx?vid=1087154&pcid=36289
Thanks.
I'd suggest a thorough pre-purchase inspection at an independent shop. If you have a shop in town that specializes in Volvos, even better.
Buying a used car carries inherent risk. Buying a 10 year old car with 140K is definitely risky. Buying a 10 year old Volvo with 140K, and lots of moving parts that are over-engineered and expensive to fix, is even riskier.
On a probably separate issue. they did find a broken crankcase breather hose, which they replaced (for $150) and then recommended replacing the crankcase ventilation system (~400 to repair) because it had about 1psi of positive pressure in the crankcase. Claimed these were maintenance issues not covered under my extended warranty. Hopefully my next car will be something a bit simpler.
If the car "surges" between 2nd and 3rd gear and you feel a clunk as it either shifts up or down. The the common solenoid problem with these transmissions that seem to occur on models made from 2001-2004. The mechanics in today's dealerships cannot "fix" the transmission - they can only read the error code and replace the entire unit - in a sense, they're not really mechanics anymore.
My 2001 V70XC wagon is on it's 3rd transmission and it has less than 100k miles. Also, once the transmission starts to fail, the adaptive control unit doesn't work effectively to correct the issue - it just makes it worse over time. However, I have found that you can change your driving behavior to reduce or eliminate this issue, but my recommendation from you would be to not buy it. Find a new model, post 2005 or an earlier model made before 2000.
Current car sat on the drive for 6 months after they (Volvo) declared it unsafe:-))- with only option to buy another car as new transmission unit and fitting is 3-4 times valuue of car! Yeh - right a Volvo that dies at 85K miles, fully Volvo serviced and only 10 years old with what appears to be a clearly known Volvo problem on those auto transmission units?
Why would ever I buy another one? And this is from a family that has grown up with Volvos for 40 years.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Manufacturing fault would seem to be clear to me on transmission unit. I believe I read on other boards in the US class action suits are being coinsidered/might have been started. Doesn't help my wife with no car mind you!
Going to Audi I think for the next one next week!
Basically, I made a huge enough stink with the dealership & with Volvo corporate that they paid for a new one to be installed. The 2nd one started to go 13 months after that, just after the warranty ended. The dealer said the wouldn't replace it & that warranty wasn't valid. I again complained in a big way, posting negative things against the dealer & Volvo on any appropriate car blog & site I could find. Within 3 weeks, they replaced it again for free. The adage is true, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Volvo and all the dealerships know this issue exists. However, no deaths have been linked to it, so no recall. Be the squeaky wheel...don't let them push you, the consumer the rely on, over.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=aw55+50sn
Anyone have the same experience? This isn't what I would call the best dealership so I am suspect that they know what they are talking about.
Can it be something else? If I decide to move forward with changing the transmission I am reluctant to go with Volvo since they seem to have a recurring problem. Anyone know of good remans or a better vendor?
2007 V70R
They aren't even manufactured by the same company...
That V90 has a GM transmission while our V70's have an Aisin (Toyota) transmission.
For what its worth, my 2004 V70 now has 152,000 trouble free miles