Was leaving a parking lot yesterday and as the transmission shifted, I think from 2nd to 3rd gear it seemed to slip and the RPM's went to around 4,000. I removed my foot from the gas pedal and as the RPM's dropped the transmission shifted into the next gear. It did it once before, but that was during a substantial rain, and I thought it may have hydroplaned. However, this time it was on dry pavement.

I have e-mailed the nearest Volvo dealer, Volvo of Louisville, Louisville KY, and I'm going to take it in next Tuesday. The car has 48,000 on it and the service history from the original dealer which I got a copy of does not show any of this problem occuring. I'm taking it to the dealer as it is still under factory warranty.

Has anyone else experienced this same problem? And is there anything I should tell the service department when I drop off the car?

These transmissions do go bad.It is somewhat common.

I'm supposed to take it in on Tuesday. I want to get it in before it hits 50K so if it is a bad transmission it will be covered under the warranty. I hope they don't just service it and tell me that everything is OK. I think I'll take in a written breakdown of what's been happening so that it will be "one the record" if it does go bad after the 50K threshold. Is there anything in particular I should tell them regarding the propensity of the Volvo transmission to give up the ghost?

This happens to my car too - a very recently-purchased 2001 Volvo S60 2.4.

If I drive the car gently at low speed (15mph) and low revs (1500), then as I increase speed, the gears lurch from 2nd to 3rd, and there is a big jump in the revs (up to 3000) before the transmission finds the right gear and everything goes back to normal.

If I drive the car hard, with high revs, then the gear change from 2nd to 3rd is much smoother.

This behavior is consistent and predictable.

When we spoke to the Volvo dealership about this, they said it was the "adaptive transmission", and that the car has to "relearn" the new style of driving. They said that if the cars fails to do that, then they can reset the electronic programming and it should go away. Let me know what happens...!

I definitely will. Mine also has the bog down before it shifts sometimes. I'm going to tell them about both (problems?) when I take it in.

U guys and your automatics :P

R, I would love to have a six speed, but as my wife and daughter also drive the car on occasion, the thought of having them grind all the teeth off the gears as they "grind them til they find them" leaves me in tears. Someday, when daughter & son are out of college, and wife doesn't have to drive my car I'll get a "manny tranny". ;)

Dropped off the S60 Tuesday afternoon and picked it up last night (Wed.). They drove the car and of course it didn't do either of the things I had given them detailed written information on. They updated the ECM and TCM programs. They told me that the car would need to reprogram itself to the way I drive and to drive it for a week and see if the problem persists. If it does then bring it back in. It shifted fine all the way home and this morning going to work. I guess I'll wait and see what happens. I'll keep all posted.

If it acts up again try to go right to the dealer and drive it with someone from there so they know exactly what it is doing.

Dealer is 45 miles away. CSR I talked to said if I wasn't happy to bring it back in before I hit the 50K mark so that if there was any question as to whether warranty would cover it that I could say "I brought it in and gave you two chances to fix it already and it isn't". He of course said this "off the record".

I agree 99.9% of the time they will fix it if you complained many times before going out of warranty.

We did the same thing last week - had the dealer reset the computer module and did a transmission fluid flush - it has not cured the problem (although it has alleviated it a little bit). We are taking it in again this week and will keep all updated.

If anyone has any ideas as to what to say to the dealer, I'm all ears...

P.S. If we didn't get an automatic, my wife wouldn't be able to drive it!

Just tell them the problem is still there.

I have driven the car for a week & a half now since the computer reprogramming. I have not experienced any problems since. I guess in my case it was just the need to update the modules.

CONGRATS :clap: :clap: :banana: :460: :banana: :460:

The transmission on my 2001 Volvo S60 died on me at the age of 3 years with 58,000 miles on it. There was no indication that there was a problem until about 5 minutes before it died. The transmission slipped twice and then died in the middle of a busy parkway with my wife and three kids in the car. It was winter and I had just left church. I had to jump out of the car and go back 50 feet or so and direct cars traveling at 55mph+ to switch lanes so that they would not slam into my car and kill my family. Thankfully, an umarked cruiser pulled up about 5 minutes later. There was no emergency lane to push the car out of the traffic. As I am writing this, I can not believe I still own this car.

I guess what I am trying to say is that this Volvo has let me down and is not the car I thought it would be. Be careful if you are having transmission problems with your Volvo. I have been driving for 20 years and this Volvo is the only car that has every stranded me in the middle of traffic. Don't let it happen to you.

Problem solved for me too. We took our car to the dealer yesterday and they had another look at it. This time, we had a different service technician. He did some research and found that it was a really simple problem to fix in the transmission that was buried somewhere in the Volvo memo / bulletin list (part numbers 30646691, 30651771?). Something as simple as "replacing a washer" (I'm quoting my wife).

Sure enough - problem solved. :banana: