We were taking the car in for some routine service this evening. My housemate was driving the Volvo. She felt the "power fluctuate" while climbing a hill, saw a warning light "briefly flash", and pulled the car over. When I drove it the rest of the way to the dealer, I discovered that the O/D would engage only briefly when the throttle was off, then it would immediate disengage again. The orange 'O/D off' arrow was *not* lit unless I manually locked out the O/D. I asked the dealer to check the relay and the kickdown cable (which I had visually inspected - it didn't seem to be binding).
The report from the dealer was "it needs a new transmission". They say the relay is working (it did seem to be working), the cable is ok, and the O/D unit itself is broken. I did a Google search for this, and only found one or two cases of this happening, with no responses from the group. So, folks, what do you think? Would just a bad solenoid act like this, or did the O/D unit die for no apparent reason? The car was driven gently, the trans fluid flushed twice in 5 years, and there were no previous problems with the AW-71 trans, aside from a leaking tailshaft seal a few years ago. It was a very cold Winter, and the car was whining in the coldest weather, but that whine went away at highway speeds, and it seemed to be the carrier bearing.
Unless we can find a used transmission pronto, I plan to drive the car with the O/D locked out, and speed kept to no more than 60mph. Is the transmission likely to hold together with a broken O/D? It seems to be shifting fine in the other three gears. We don't want to sink a lot more money into the car, but don't want to junk it, either. I'm actually considering going with 195/75 tires as a cheap way to raise the overall gearing enough to cruise at 60 without the engine roaring. Opinions? Sources for good used AW-71 transmissions...?