I Purchased a 98 XC 70 recently. I had a strange experience when I drove the car on the highway two days ago. The Mode "W" arrow light started flashing after accelerate when traffic light change from red to green , no matter if it is on S or E Mode. when I drove up the hill(even the road is almost flat), the speed wouldn't go up no matter how hard I pushed the gas pedal, if I didn't hold the pedal deep enough to keep the speed, the speed would drop and never went back until the car was going down to the hill(even almost flat), then eveything back to normal(except it still flash). It seems there is a ghost leveler sensor that monitoring the road condition and wouldn't accelerate up the hill. If I use cruise control, it will stay on the speed when it drove up the hill, but wouldn't be able to accelerate. when I have to slow down in the traffice while going up to the hill, if I was on 30mph it will stay on that speed until I passed the hill. I drove like this for about 300miles on the highway two days ago, then I stopped at the rest area and turned off the car. Afer 10 min, I started driving again, the trans arrow light didn't flash any more and everything was back to normal. is there anyone can help?

 

The arrow flashing means there is a fault in the trans. system.When the arrow flashes the car starts off in 3rd gear.

 

Thank you tech.
When arrow flashing, what I can do is to stop the car and shut off the engine, then turn the key to II position and shift from P to L until I see the arrow light is solid on(heard this from surfing the net). After this I start the engine and the arrow light disappeared. I have to keep playing this trick. I found the error code is 0733. What could be a fix to it?
thank you

 

I will have to try to figure out what that code is before I can tell you how to fix it.

I am used to Volvo codes.

 

a local guy helped me pull out the code. The error code is about fault on gear ratio. I don't know anything else other than that. the gas padel feels hard when I push, I don't know if all the xc70s are like that.

 

It might be a bad PNP switch.

Have you cleared the code to see if it comes back?

 

I just had the error code erased. the codes were,
p0733 gear 3 incorrect gear ratio
p0734 gear 4 incorrect gear ratio

after erased, it come back again. i could feel the hesitation on gear 3, 4 and the the arrow started flashing and the ckeck egine light on.

 

I don't have the books and I forget exactly what those codes are.

You might want to have it checked by either a dealer or a trans shop.

 

Hi,
this is to give an update on what is going on to my car. I finally sent the car to Volvo dealer to let them check it out. I was told the transmission was bad. They give me a quote of $3000.00 to fix it. so, I called another repair shop, they said they can repair the trasmission and replace the bad part not the whole trans. To uninstall and reinstall would cost $390.00 plus what ever need to be replaced. I thought it was a good deal, so the repair shop towed the car away from volvo dealer for $35.00. Two days later, I was told that the casing and some gear parts failed, they were trying to locate the part. another 3 days, I was told it was hard to find the parts, to fix it would cost $2500.00 with some used parts. I did't feel that I would want to spend that much, so I surfed around internet and found a used transmission out of a salvage car (65000miles on it, exactly the same year model). It cost $550 plus $200 shipping.
I decided to go for it. In a week, the whole trans arrived to the shop, and it was installed. The total cost was about $1200.00($550 + 200 + 390 + 35 + 30(trans oil )). the car now runs perfect.

 

Congrats!!