I am new to this site and need help with my 1998 v70 T5. My car is occasionaly surging while I am trying to stop. I actually ran into a building on Fri and caused considerable damage(not to the car). I was trying to stop and the car just surged. The little beast is in the shop and I am getting an ugly feeling the problem will not be found. Please help me if you can Thx :cat:

Do u have the a/c on when this happens? I drive a Ford at work, and lately with the extreme heat around here, Ive noticed that the engine is surging when downshifting (auto trans), but doesnt surge when the a/c is low or off.

The garage has told us this is normal. It doesnt sound like it does it to the extreme that yours has though

BTW, :00000732:

Thanks for your reply. I may have had the a/c on but do not think it was a factor. On the other hand, what do I know? I have had this happen 3 times in the last year and this last episode was down right scary, not to mention embarassing as the building I hit was a liquor store. The attending cop gave me a minor sobriety test. sigh! my insurance company is not too happy with me. :cat:

How bad was the surge?

The surge was bad enough to put the car part way thru a brick wall. Atfer i was able to reverse the car and was trying to get it under control, I notitced the tach was running over 6. The surge came to a complete surprise as I was putting the brake on, not accelerating. Thanks for the interest. :cat:

Hmmm. This sounds serious. Lucky noone was pinned / hurt due to it.

You mentioned that it happened 3 times in the last year. Did you ever get it checked? What was the diagnosis?

So, is the car presently in the workshop now? What did the present mechanic say about it?

Possible the throttle was stuck open?
It is possible the cruise control motor was shorted due to acid from battery.

The first time the car surged, I was unsure what happened as I had rear-ended another car(not due to the surge). The 2nd time happened in my garage as I was parking and honestly thought maybe I was fighting my anti-lock brakes. I could not duplicate the problem so did not get it fixed. It doesn't really matter anyway since I got the car back from the mechanic yesterday and he could find nothing wrong. He even put a call into Volvo to see if they knew of any problems like mine but no go. I told my mechanic I was working you all and would keep him informed. Thanks for your concern :cat:

Hopefully it will not happen again...