Hi,

This is my first Volvo; I bought it three weeks ago. After driving the car over these few weeks I've noticed that the car feels a little stressed when I drive it at speeds of 80kph+ I don't know if this is normal for this car, or if there is something wrong, here's what happens,

1) At exactly 80kph, holding the speed steady on the flat, the engine sounds rough (similar to when it is accelerating "quickly") and I can feel vibration through the steering wheel. At a steady speed above or below 80kph the engine smoothes out and the vibrations stop.

2) At speeds over 90kph my RPM rises above 3000RPM, at 120kph it is about 3600RPM and at 130kph it touches 4000RPM.

I am also only getting about 7.1kpl out of the car, that's with 70% motorway driving at 70-100kph and 30% between 0-40kph. This seems a little low to me, even for a 240?

Are these things normal? Or does it sound like car has problems, with the engine, transmission, or both? (eak!)

Thanks!

 

sounds like your Overdrive isn't engaging. You're going to get lousy fuel economy running at those RPMs so whenever you figure out whats wrong, that should improve too.

 

What should be the maximum RPM's for this car under average driving conditions? And what fuel economy should I be getting? Cheers.

 

I believe my automatic transmision is a 3-speed ( +overdrive). I've been looking around for transmission reduction ratios, I could find values for a 1986 model,

Reduction ratios 1986 240 DL / GL:

1st gear 2.45:1
2nd gear 1.45:1
3rd gear 1:1
Overdrive 0.69:1

At 120kph my RPMs are 3600. Assuming it's stuck in 3rd gear at a ration of 1:1 if the over drive was working should the RPMs drop to 2484? (i.e. 3600 * 0.69)?

 

Is the Yellow arrow on the Dash lit up?

When you are at speed what happens when you push the button on the shifter?

 

When I press the button on the shifter an orange up arrow lights up on the dash. Nothing else happens though, the RPM readings do not change, no change in engine sound either. Should this button have a noticable effect on the RPM reading?

My understanding is that when the orange arrow light is on the overdrive is switched off, is that right? So if the overdrive was working, when I press the button, should I see the RPM increase?

 

Yes when the light is on the Overdrive is OFF.
When you push the button while driving the RPM's should go way up. When you push it again to turn the light off the RPM's should drop lower.

Sound like either the soleniod is not working or the Transmission is bad.

 

My guess is that the soleniod and transmission are still the original, maybe both need replacing? How much would a transmission cost to fix and or replace?

The car sounds unhappy when running along at exactly 80kph, could this also be related to a bad transmission? Or is this another problem, with the engine? (hopes it's a transmission problem, they two problems solved in one!)

 

You should be able to pick up a Good used transmisison for a Couple of Hundred dollars.

The Soleniod I think is like $150.00
http://www2.swedishpartswholesale.co...enoid&dp=false

 

What REVS should I expect from this car? At the moment I have 80kph = 2600RPM, 90kph=2900RPM, 100kph=3100RPM, 120kph=3600RPM, 130kph = 4000RPM.

 

I will have to try to figure it out for you.

 

Thanks, I've had a trall through google but could not find the information. (same with finding expected mpg figures, I'm getting 18mpg (us) or 22mpg(uk) which seems quite low)

 

That does seem low....my 240 got around 26mpg.

My money is still on the overdrive