I'm looking at buying a v70 non-turbo. owner stated car drives fine in cold weather but in warm weather it shifts hard between 3rd going into 4th. i asked my local Volvo mechanic and they a transmission flush may fix it. however, after reading a few threads on here, sounds like a rebuild may need to happen. any thoughts or suggestions? obviously i don't want to buy a headache. owner said this started about 3k miles ago.

 

It's the solenoids that stick when the fluid warms up, fluid flush won't help.

 

I read about people swapping three of the solenoids with replacements from Rostra transmission. The tranny does not have to come out but you have to drop the subframe. Anyone have experience with this?

 

I'll be doing this in the near future, it seems. I did the same in my previous "project car" (a 2003 Jetta wagon), though there were nine solenoids and they were a little harder to get to. The info I've seen so far makes it look like you basically lower the subframe and lift the engine/tranny enough to get the tranny pan (on the front of the transmission) off. Doesn't look like a huge project - certainly a lot better than swapping the whole tranny.

I'm debating between ordering new solenoids (which would be better if the problem is that the bores are worn out) or a rebuild kit (which would be fine if the problem is just contamination in the bores causing the linear solenoids to stick). I'm betting that it's a 90% chance that it's the latter, coming off a few thousand miles of pulling a really large trailer.

But please share any links or info you get on the process here - I have found a couple online resources that have good data, but would really appreciate something that's V70 specific.