I am a new Forum member, and relatively new owner of a 1994 Volvo 850. I bought it from a friend in cherry condition with only 57,000 miles. Loving everything about it, until yesterday . . .

Driving from Albuquerque to Taos in New Mexico, cruising at 80 MPH with cruise control on, going up the big hill between ABQ and Santa Fe when all of a sudden I started losing speed. The accelerator was basically floored, but speed kept dropping. I had to put on the flashers, move to the right lane, deactivate cruise control, and limp up the hill at about 45 - 50 MPH.

The car didn't seem to want to down shift while under the load of the hill.

Once on top and back on level ground, the car/transmission seemed to be fine.

The problem repeated itself on any significant hill until we reached our destination.

Given that the transmission works flawlessly on the levels (and downhill) - seems like that is probably not the issue.

I reviewed an earlier thread that looked like a similar problem, but did not see any resolution.

Any ideas/suggestions? Otherwise, it is into the shop on Monday.

 

Hi Billy and welcome to the site.

Thanks for the great description of your problem, it does help us help you.

I guess I still have a few questions about your 18 year o'l jem. When was the last time the spark plugs and wires were replaced? Were you running 91+ octane as recommended by the owners manual? Did you move the shifter to "3" to see if that would help?

I just left Albuquerque 2 weeks ago. Went to Santa Fe while there and never once experienced a drop in speed on any of the hills, mind you that my car is turbo and has about 80 more hp than a NA which I assume you have.

 

My 1995 NA loses a bit of power on hills, even a mild hill will kick it back to 3rd if the cruise is on, if I am sitting on 70mph and hit a big hill my car will drop about 10-20mph trying to get it up the hill.

 

My 740 GLE USE TO DO THAT. It only had 116 hp. LOL

I monitor my HP while driving sometimes. When going 70 mph I only use about 42 hp while crusing and about 62 when going up nice size hills. So it doesn't take much once you're on the move.

 

Is this a N/A or a Turbo?

My N/A hates hills, the turbo loves them. None of us were there so the question is to you...do you think that the problem was the transmission not downshifting? Meaning, if it had downshifted do you think you would have had the issue? We need to break down whether this was a engine or transmission problem.

 

I agree with this. The post doesn't make it clear.

My NA used to hate hills, since I changed the coolant temp sensor it's (still slow but) much better. The other day it chirped the tires when it changed into second!

 

I really appreciate the thoughts and feedback. Sorry about the delay in responding.

First of all, this is a standard 850 - no Turbo.

I believe the problem had to do with the car refusing to downshift while taking the hill, and as a result it could not maintain speed. I did move the automatic shifter to "3" - but that also did not impact things noticeably. (Perhaps it wasn't going below 3rd?)

It is possible I had less than premium gas - but I certainly wasn't experiencing any knocking. I am only using top grade now to see if the problem will repeat.

While it was happening, I assumed it was a transmission issue, but the transmission has been flawless since, and I have never had any problems on level land.

I did take it to a shop in Taos, they drove it around and could find nothing wrong. They also inspected the plugs, no issues.

Hopefully this is a one off. Will keep driving it and see if problem returns.

 

At 43 mph+ the car should be in 3rd or 4th gear. So unless your speed dropped under 40 mph it would have stayed in 3rd. Now you should have noticed a difference between 3rd and 4th. So, next time, take a notice of the speed & rpm's to clearify what gear you're in and if the car is still loosing speed. My guess is if you're going up a hill, loosing speed, at 50 mph in 4th your rpm's would be around 2,000. If it's in 3rd the rmp's would be around 2,600. It wouldn't be a bad idea or hurt the car to drop it in 2nd, which would force the rmp's to jump to around 4,200 and cause it to maintain speed and maybe even gain a little.

When driving along and you gradually get the pedal to the floor I don't think it triggers the "kick down" feature. You either have to suddenly jam it to the floor or switch the preformance switch to the "Sports" mode. You can try switching to that to see how that helps.

 

Yeah my NA stays in sports all the time.

I will say that in sport mode it is the best auto transmission I have had the opportunity to drive. It downshifts easily and uses the power band of the engine, such that it is. Economy mode is OK, but just doesn't downshift quickly enough for my likes.