I thought I would post this here for others to find when they face the same problem I did.

Yesterday, in trying to get up a hill in the snow, I put the transmission of our 850 into winter mode. I also tried putting it in low gear. I probably got the poor tranny confused, because I started getting a flashing up arrow and a check engine light. Pushing the winter mode switch again didnt do anything to fix it.

I searched this board, and saw a couple posts on the flashing arrow. Some of the ideas were:
- it is a faulty pnp switch
- need a new transmission
- it is a false code - clear the codes and dont worry about it

Anyway, my wife called our local garage, and our trusted mechanic gave her the following procedure to try

- switch the key to on, but dont start
- run the transmission slowly through every position twice
- turn the key off
- start the car

The lights are now off, and it looks like we are good to go.

I have no idea why this worked, but maybe it will save someone getting conned into a new transmission.

richr