02 S60 annoying situation with automatic transmission

sergio · Post by **sergio** » 23 Mar 2015, 18:32

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two sporadic symptoms and no diagnostic;

A; You drive (whatever the speed) and you want to slow down, so you decrease the foot pressure and bang there is a kick in the transmission.

B; at the take of (after a stop or red light) you feel you have push the pedal real down because the car feels heavy, reluctant to move!

no specific code shows (well, except one for A/C)
half of ATF was changed

any suggestion what to concentrate on?

thanks

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Post by **SuperHerman** » 23 Mar 2015, 21:25

Valve body issues. Countless posts on this forum. What does your tranny fluid look like? When and how often has it been changed? I would wager that your solenoids are sticking and that is causing the problems. You can either rebuild the valve body and rebuild/replace the three solenoids or rebuild/replace your three solenoids. Also check the B4 Servo, but I had the same symptoms around the same mileage and a valve body and solenoid rebuild cured the issue. If you do it yourself you can use the SK AW55-50 shift kit from TransGo that is what I did. Not a bad job, just take your time. Look up my other posts. Should be done with tranny fluid for under $200 and a weekend.

Post by **oragex** » 24 Mar 2015, 06:14

When you replaced half the fluid, did you properly check the fluid level? This is better done in warm weather, after driving for a good hour. Or even better having a Vide plugged to read the transmission fluid temp (must be at 80C for level check)

sergio · Post by **sergio** » 25 Mar 2015, 12:22

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Thanks Herman

1 Fluid is medium red but definitively not black.
2 Solenoids. Shouldn't there be a code in the DICE VIDA indicating something?

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SuperHerman wrote:Valve body issues. Countless posts on this forum. What does your tranny fluid look like? When and how often has it been changed? I would wager that your solenoids are sticking and that is causing the problems. You can either rebuild the valve body and rebuild/replace the three solenoids or rebuild/replace your three solenoids. Also check the B4 Servo, but I had the same symptoms around the same mileage and a valve body and solenoid rebuild cured the issue. If you do it yourself you can use the SK AW55-50 shift kit from TransGo that is what I did. Not a bad job, just take your time. Look up my other posts. Should be done with tranny fluid for under $200 and a weekend.

draser · Post by **draser** » 25 Mar 2015, 17:34

Sergio, let me try to understand this. When you take foot of accel normally tranny does not kick down, it's the other way around. So I think I'd look at motor and tranny mounts first. And when you take off does it rev up and not upshift or it's lazy upshifting? Because slow take off may be caused by engine tune up as well.

Post by **SuperHerman** » 25 Mar 2015, 23:45

Draser has a point - look at all your mounts to make sure the problem does not lie there.

With 170k on the car, based on your signature, I assume it is your valve body b/c my XC70 did the same thing around 185k. I had no codes until it got really bad - I am talking serious slams on occasion. That has been my experience. Looking back it was a little sluggish and I had funny shift flares, but with nothing to base it off of one forgets what proper function is.

I don't know Vida well enough, but do some digging to see if you can find a live monitor in the program and check the shift points as you drive. Watching some videos on the web I saw one guy who hooked up pressure sensors on the valve body of a Maxima to test it - he had a specialized tester not VIDA. The Maxima he tested used the same tranny as the S60 AW50/55. This is rather involved and requires removing the Valve Body Oil Pan cover and using a test cover or drilling holes in the Valve Body Oil Pan cover - at this point you are 10-12 bolts away from pulling the valve body or a few bolts to swap out the solenoids. After doing a ton of reading and video watching I concluded mine was the solenoids and went for the rebuild. After doing it and looking at my valve body wear you could probably get by with just swapping the solenoids or having your solenoids rebuilt. Many on the Maxima forums go this route with success, or so they claim. If you have the solenoids on hand this is a pretty quick turn around and can be done easily in a day.

Check your B4 Servo and tranny/engine mounts. If they check out then I would wager it is the valve body.