On hardshifting, slips and ATF

[vroller]

An Indy did an ATF change for me last month. The immediate difference I noticed was she was shifting hard from 1st to 2nd. About two weeks later, the 'orange arrow/trans warning light' started flashing together with the 'w/e/s' mode switches. I went back to him and he hooked up the comp and diagnosed the problem as failed abs speed sensor.

Few days ago, the tranny started slipping when it shifted from 1st to 2nd (a problem well documented in here). Later on, the car wouldn't even crawl when i released the brakes at the lights and once or twice having stopped I felt a thunk in the tranny as if it was still shifting down.

Made calls to another Indy and buried myself with all the info about wot the guys in here had said about Mobil 3309 and Toyota T-IV, etc etc but the confounding bit was that the ori manual specified Volvo 97337 for my car.
Wot I did find out was the first Indy had used Honda ATF (why the hell? - it cost about half the price of wot I later replaced it with), while the latter Indy said Volvo specifies 1161521 for 4-speed and 1161540 for 5-speed. He also said, an over-heated tranny could get the 'tranny light' to flash and the code warning would be 'speed sensor missing' cos the tranny is slipping and the sensor can't receive the right signals from it.

I nursed my car all the way to the latter Indy yesterday in heavy quitting time traffic (ambient temp 30deg C) and altho she didn't slip, she did refuse to crawl at one of the lights so I had to feather the accelerator pedal.

Drained and replaced with about 4 litres of Volvo 1161521, reset the code and she immediately moved fine again! Upshift from 1st to 2nd was noticeably smoother too. I'm just lucky I guess that I had not trashed her in the last few weeks cos if I had i'm sure I'd have burnt the tranny with wotever 'inferior' stuff that was in there!

Anyway, Volvo's are indeed built for life and this proves it!

I'll be going back to the latter Indy to drain the current mix in there cos there's still some of the 'inferior' stuff in it and I'll be using 1161540 (rated 3309) although it's almost RM78 (USD20) a litre over here but it'll be worth treating the tranny to higher spec fluid, I feel.

And just an end note, the latter Indy advises 'Not Flushing' old trannies, especially if you do not know of its history because a few had been flushed (with a high powered machine at the local distributor) during which all the gunk (there always will be some although it's microscopic and no matter how often you change your fluid) was removed and with it went the 'pieces' that were holding the gears/shims/blades together, effectively putting the tranny out of commission. It's a bit like quitting heavy smoking whereby the poor dude succumbed earlier cos the body just went crazy in it's clearing enthusiasm, eh?

[vroller]

Just in case any of you guys are interested.

The tranny didn't really get much better after the first ATF change with Volvo 1611521 ATF. After the 3rd change about a week ago she started to slip and shudder when crawling in heavy traffic and when climbing slowly up hills. Desperate, I scoured the net and forums again yesterday for anything about additives that might help me out of this situation.

I stumbled on Lubegard Platinum. So I made a beeline for the local dealer and told the top gun there about my problem. He recommended Lubegard Red (slightly cheaper than Platinum). His advice was that I flushed the tranny with their machine and used Redline ATF but I said I gotta be fair to the Indy who had been trying to solve my problems and should give em one last go, with a bottle of Lubegard Red dumped in as well.

IT WORKED! The 'slip and shudder' syndrome is gone in my 98 V70 T5.

So before you part good money for a rebuild or pick up a used tranny, consider spending about 20USD on a bottle of Lubegard Red/Platinum plus whatever recommended ATF you trust.


Mobil 1, K&N Filter, Hot Inazma Voltage Stabilizer, Lubegard Red

[IVIUSTANG]

Not to resurrect an old thread but, I am interested if your tranny is still working well or if Lubegard Red was just a quick fix with no long term benefits?

Thanks,

- Jesse