Flashing orange arrow - 2000 XC70 AWD

[marmaduke1224]

Hello-

I have rejoined the forum after an 5 year absence, after acquiring a 2000 XC70 SE, 84k miles.

for reference, I previously owned a 1994 850 GLT, and a 1999 S70 so I am familiar with the P80 platform.

I just bought the XC and on the way home from picking it up, the orange arrow started flashing. It doesn’t seem to be in limp mode, as it seems to start in first gear and has good acceleration from a dead start. It’s not a speed demon off the line, but I think it’s functioning properly at that point in the drive cycle.

What I do experience is while driving at speed, at around 2500 RPM, acceleration is weak and sometimes, the RPMs drop a bit. If I continue to press the accelerator further, the car will accelerate robustly. I’m not getting any shaking or stalling.

A quick search points to a failing PNP switch, but wondering based on the acceleration/shifting issues, if something else could be going on?

[abscate]

You need to read the codes generating the flashing arrow. It could be ECM or TCM codes.

PnP switch diagnosis sounds unlikely

[Clemens]

At this age, if the AT starts acting up, you might want to consider a manual swap (assuming that this low mileage car is in decent shape so it's worth the time and enwrgy pit into a manual swap.)

These ATs are not worth fiddling around with too much because parts or service partners for them are basically nonexistant.

I would believe on a 2000 xc70 the swap would be as straightforward as when I did it in my 96 R. It took me a while to gather parts, but it was totally worth it. I'm pretty sure you could just drop in an FWD M56 and lose AWD that way, but at the same time delet future AWD problems with NLA parts.

Just one man's opinion, but I'm happy I went that route.

[scot850]

The biggest problem this side of the Atlantic is the lack of donor cars to do a manual swap. The majority of cars hear are automatics and AWD manuals are really rare if you want to keep the AWD.

I had a flashing arrow problem on a 2000 V70 FWD. I posted on this about 7-8 years ago. After going through and having the codes, the issue ended up being the TCU. The contacts on the TCU to the main connector in the box had become oxidized and were the route of the problem. The dealer removed the TCU and ECU and cleaned both carefully with electrical cleaner and the reseated and removed the units several times to clean the pins. No issues since.

But like the guys said, it is way easier to get the codes to find out what the codes are as those may help identify another simple issue.

Neil.