Hello guys,

So I ran into an issue last night with my car going into "limp mode." I was on a 3.5 hour trip last night driving through the mountains and it's been getting really cold up here. The temperature reading on my dash kept dropping down into the single digits and eventually got down to below zero. I'm coasting along and when the temp got down to like 1 degree i notice that a "-" replaced the "D" symbol and that the "transmission service required" light had come on along with the check engine light. well i was about 3 minutes from the next town so I "limped" in and parked the car thinking i should probably call someone. well after i turned the car off i turned it back on again and noticed it was out of limp mode. so, i drove it a little bit in town and it shifted fine. i decided i should just continue to the next town because i didn't want to be stuck where i was at. I'm driving along again and the temp drops and i'm coasting and the car goes in limp mode again. so by now i'm thinking it's doing this because of the cold. well i park the car, get it out of limp mode, and then start driving again but this time i didn't let it just coast. I kept the car running between 2.5 - 3.5k the rest of the time (driving over a peak with a -4 degree reading) and it didn't go into limp mode anymore for the 1.5 hour remainder of the trip.

by the way i just had the transmission flushed about 200 miles before this happened.

has anyone had any issues like this before?
Is it doing this because of the temp?
if i do the message reset thing will it reset the check engine light as well?

Thanks everyone in advance for your help!

 

I would have the codes for the TCM and ECM pulled.

 

Any suggestion on what device i need to read those codes? I have a obdII cable from when i used to toy around with my eclipse gsx. do you think that and a certain combined software would work or do you have to have a VST in order to read codes on a volvo?

 

Some aftermarket systems will read Volvo but not many.

 

WOW... just went to checker and used an OBDII scan tool there. there were a total of 2 errors...

P0700 Transmission Control System (MIL Request)
P0740 Torque Converter Clutch solenoid circuit

There was also some freeze frame data for the P0740 Code:

Engine Coolant Temp: -40 degrees F
Vehicle Speed 57 MPH

It only went into limp mode when i had been cruising for a couple minutes. My friend thinks that with it being as cold as it was, the torque converter wouldn't lock up when i started to cruise so the car went into limp mode.

As far as the -40 degree engine coolant temp goes, we think that the car didn't actually capture a reading to store so it just assigned the lowest possible value the system thinks that field could be, -40.

As for the P0700 code, since the torque converter wouldn't lock up, the TCS started freaking out so it threw out that code.

Any ideas, thoughts, anything? Thanks!