I bought a Volvo S80 2007 model with a V8 engine since 2 weeks ago. My car has 207,000 Kilometers. When the car is cold, the gear shifts perfectly. However, after driving for 30 mins or more I encounter harsh shifting between 2nd and 3rd gear, and harsher shifting when parking the car using the reverse gear. Other than that the car dives smoothly. I would say the car drive smoothly on highways, but the gear troubles come when driving in city at low gears.

I have gone through internet to check the possible reasons and came up with these possible faulty items:
1- Transmission Fluid (Everyone agreed on changing the transmission fluid)
2- Transmission Valve Body (Many articles mentioned changing the body valve will eliminate 70% of problems; many others mentioned it is the first item to be damaged on AWTF-80 SC gear boxes)
3- Transmission Solenoid (no clue what they do)

I was thinking to change the transmission fluid with EXXON J3309, but I am also thinking to buy a refurbished valve body from ebay (worth $270) in order to carry both repairs together and to save on labor cost and cut repair time.

Does any one recommend combining these two repairs at the same time, or not?

Any other things I should consider? I would appreciate your help.

Thanks

 

Its probably the valve body so I would agree with you.

 

I am reading through the internet that the s80 gear (AW TF-80 SC) was used on different cars on different models.
My question: Is the valve body part universal over all these models or each car and each year has differences in the valve body.
Will I be able to fit a (AW TF-81 SC) on my 2007 S80 car ?