I purchased my 2001 S40 1.9T from the 1st owner at 52,000 miles. I soon noticed when the car is slowing down & the RPM's hit 1500 the car feels as if it goes into neutral & the RPM gage DROPS TO 1000. Dealership seemed clueless. I read something about an software upgrade for customer complaints re: shifting. What is this software upgrade suppose to do? Has anyone had this?

 

I have never heard of TCM upgrade, but an ETM upgrade. Which has nothing to do with the transmission.

But there might be a TCM upgrade.

 

Volvo service Mgr told me Transmission Control Module. Said my care has already had a software upgrade. My problem is when the car is slowing down & the RPM's hit 1500 the car feels as if it goes into neutral. THE RPM gage DROPS TO 1000. Dealership seemed clueless.

 

I know what the TCM is and does. Don't know what to tell you. Maybe your transmission is going bad.

 

This has been going on since I purchased from 1st owner at 52000 miles. I questioned the dealership and was told S40 NO TRANSMISSION PROBLEMS.

 

You the more I think about it. It might be your ETM going bad. Electronic Throttle Module. I may be wrong, but it might be partly the reason. Who knows.

 

Please tell me a little obout the ETM. This is my 5th Volvo the others were 740's & 940's. My '91 940T is still going at 233000. I do most of my own work on my cars this electronic stuff is tricky.

 

Well if it is the ETM. Which I don't know if Volvo fixed in the 2001 cars. But the ETM is your throttle body. However it is electricly controlled.

1999 was the year they started to use the ETM and 1999 models have a lot of problems with them. Like mine did.

If yours is going bad your ETS light should show up on the dash and stay on and not go off. If it comes on and goes off your fine. But if it stays on then your ok. (ETS: Electronic Throttle System)

Volvo is the only one who can take out the old ETM and install a new ETM, they also put in new software for it as well. This sucks because it costs about $1k. It might be covered under Volvo's new warranty on the ETM's.

When your ETM goes bad, it kind of sends you into LIMP mode. Mine didn't for some reason, but still had to have it fixed at the price of just under $1k.

 

Thank you.

 

S40's are not the usual suspects in the ETM problem. It is usually the 5 cylinder turbo cars, and Volvo has extended the warranty for those cars to 10 years/200,000 miles.There have been some posts about S40's with the identical problem to yours. It seems as though those cars have transmission issues. RU cvered under an extended warranty? BJ

 

No. I called and confirmed with the Volvo service Mgr it is my TCM. This being my first front wheel drive I did not pick up on this. I can ignore the small stupid stuff Volvo (Ford ?) overlooked but a transmission and I still owe good money.

 

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!

The S40 DOESN'T HAVE AN ETM TILL 2004.5

The S40's have had Transmission problems. They are pretty much the same trans as the S70.
If all the software has been updated then most likely a the problems lies inside the transmission.

The Software upgrade would change some of the shift points and change some of the parameters in the trans control module.

The newer S60 and V70 come from the factory with something similiar that is called the Neutral control. It puts the car into neutral while your foot is not on the gas pedal. But your car doesn't have that function though.
S70driver Bye the way not trying to be snotty again.

 

Did they end up replacing the TCM or was it just software that was needed?