I have an S60 2.0T SE with 45,000 miles. It recently refused to enter first gear and my local dealer informed me that my gearbox is worn out and the clutch needs replacing. The car has never pulled anything or been abused. Volvo refuse to help as the warranty period has ended. I was wondering has anyone out there encountered a similar problem or what advice you might have as to my next course of action. To get the problem fixed by Volvo is going to cost in the region of 4,000 euro! Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Well, sounds like you're experiencing the same kind of annoyance that we did last summer. We have 2001 V70 2,4T and it needed to have its automatic gearbox replaced last year.
Same thing with us - never pulled anything or abused the engine. Our car had around 43,000 kms at that time. Luckily we were able to negotiate it so, that Volvo paid the gearbox (4300 euros) and we paid for the labour (630 euros).
As an advice I can only say that do not give up. It is absoltely unacceptable to have a gearbox failure with so little mileage. Thus fight hard and use all the means you can think of to make your Volvo dealer to come to senses. Negativity seldom works, so use hard facts and try to persuade them to reach a somekind of a compromise.
At the end of the day, I got the impression from Volvo lads, that it's not very rare phenomenon to have such problems. Especially with 2001 models. See, Volvo was trying to manufacture the world's shortest box at the time, but I guess their goal was a tad too ambititious. This is only my personal conclusion, but please do your own detective work, ask around and try to find more cases to prove this point.
Furthermore, some sales persons actually have used "new, revised box" in their sales pitches after these gearbox problems have been identified and sorted out in Finland (where I live). I wonder what's the bloody point to make it such an important point, if the gearbox really is manufactured to meet today's standards....
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