There is a pattern of failures for 850s. I won a judgement against Volvo in Court to pay 100% of the cost!!! Volvo knows about the design error and it appears Volvo will not publicly confirm the problem. They fixed it in later transmissions. These failures seem to show themselves soon after the warrantee expires. I was able to demonstrate the actual first failure occurred long before the warrantee expired. YOU CAN TOO. The key is that the actual failure goes unnoticed for a long period of time. The slipping clutches slowly burn the oil and ultimately the slipping gets worse - slowly.

Here is how I did it.

When the dreaded flashing arrow light comes on means the on board computer sensed the input and output shaft speeds were not as expected. I took the vehicle to the dealer and they confirmed the slipping and burnt oil. They told me they may not be able to get a new transmission since the replacement parts had a "warrantee hold" - whatever that means.

Remember, the first maintenance required for the transmission occurs at 70k miles.

I took the car home and extracted a sample (4oz) of the transmission oil (@ 55k miles). I drove the car for an additional 3k miles and extracted a second sample. I sent these both to an industrial equipment oil analysis lab. The results confirmed the amount of copper suspended and acid level was rising. I used these points to show on a graph that the failure started somewhere around 40k miles. (some would claim the straight line I drew through the points is incorrect - that there is a different shaped curve - but my BS, MS in mechanical engineering - along with my Professional Engineering license - tell me a straight line is as good as it gets).

So I took Volvo to small claims court and the Judge sided with me. Volvo has a judgement against them requiring tem to pay 100% of the cost.

Now Volvo has filed an appeal. So the case moves to the State of California Supreme Court. Now that they have all my data, they likely will bring in lawyers and high priced experts. They cannot afford to let this stand. We shall see.

IF YOU HAVE SIMILAR PROBLEMS WITH YOUR TRANSMISSION - PLEASE EMAIL ME.