Hey guys ..... here is a weird one :

1997 850 waggy automatic

Last Saturday daughter calls , something wrong with car. her description tells me its low on trans fluid. trans filler dip stick is OUT of trans alot of fluid is gone! Yikes. she drove approx 1/4 mile if that.
Ok fast forward to today... car was towed to my shop. fixed fill tube, drained rest of fluid , refilled with 8 new quarts of trans fluid.
Start car
Shift into reverse , nothing ! but acts weird.....
shift into neutral , car will drive forward , as it will in all forward shifted gears.

If i try to slowly move the shifter from park to reverse its like i can trick it .....almost feels like it wants to back up ......but i can make it go forward in reverse , sometimes if I continue to slowly shift from park to reverse.....

I'm stumped , but I'm not a "Volvo Guy" either.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!

 

Any lights on? Maybe another transmission fluid flush will help, but the loss of trans fluid probably caused the problem. You have to be careful with transmission fluid.

 

OK here is a small addition to the confusion ....... I was quite pissed off last night about this . Just now I pushed the car back out of the shop , started it , same issue as last night. I drove the car around the back lot while in drive at approx 10mph I shifted into reverse , and back on the gas and it will drive forward in reverse.

 

Is the orange up arrow light on the dash on? If you can, it might be a good idea to scan the transmission for codes using VOL-FCR or BrickDiag. Otherwise, a Volvo shop or dealer can do that for you.

 

No arrow light is NOT on. But quick question based on your reply...... what would a possible code show for a trans issue??

 

It depends what codes appear when the car is scanned. There are several, and in different formats depending on what you use.
OBD-II codes will appear as the standard P0XXX or P1XXX, VOL-FCR will show XXX-XXX (first 3 are letters relating to the TCU, second three are the numbers that represent the actual code) and BrickDiag will show X-X-X.
I'd scan the car with a standard OBD-II scanner, if you have one. Otherwise, AutoZone will do it for free.

 

Caveot - not a transmission expert... I'd say the first step is to see if you are getting any transmission error codes (as noted not all generic OBD-IIs will present the Volvo's codes). Step two is to rule out a shifter issue - does Park lock the wheels? Can you move/roll the car (with a push/engine off) while in N, D, R etc? IF you go from Park to R, can you move the car? If the shifter appears to be telling the transmission what gear to choose (its possible the PNP could be acting up so you can try rowing the shifter to see if that changes anything... not likely but easy to try). Not sure if you can see anything from under the car while somebody else moves the shifter... After that, you're talking about parts internal to the transmission, ie the solenoids that activate the band brakes or the band itself could be broken thus not engaging the gear. The solenoids can be replayed with the transmission in the car but usual symptoms there are hard 1-2 shifts up or down not a loss of reverse. A bad solenoid "should" throw a code indicating which is failed thus the code reader. As far as going into R while the car is going forward, I don't think the car's design will allow it to shift into reverse. Last question - with the engine on and you drop into R, does the engine free rev or does the car feel like it wants to reverse but just bogs down (possible idea is the emergency brake shoes are jamming up).

 

That's a good point... completely blew over me... PNP switch. That is known to go bad.

 

Park will not allow the car to move.

car off , reverse & neutral you can roll the car.(not sure on forward gears)

The PNP does not change where the shifter located the transmission linkage! The transmission shifter shaft goes thru the PNP and the shifter linkage lever then attaches to the shifter shaft. The PNP only is an electronic sensor or switch that tells the car what gear its in and a few other functions!

There is nothing UNDER the car to see when moving the shifter, its all done in the engine compartment on TOP of the transmission!

You can shift into reverse while driving forward , I have done it twice! As indicated above in this post! Did you think I was making that up ??

Thanks to all the others for your mindful thoughts!

 

So the deal with checking if the car can roll in gears other than park is to rule out whether the park gear threw bits into the tranny. The PNP switch is in play because these are computer controlled transmissions. The PNP indicates where the shifter is to the computer, the speed sensor and ABS also feed into the transmission computer (which is why ABS probs can show up with a blinking upshift light), then the computer triggers the solenoid valves to work the bands. That's why its totally plausible that the computer would not allow the car to go into reverse above a certain foward speed...and its the same reason to see if you can get a compatible reader to scan for the transmission codes. At the end of the day, my gut instinct says you have a broken band inside the transmission but before you start searching Car-parts.com for a replacement, its worth the effort to rule out a few other possible causes.