Nope, not the throttle control. This is the motronic 4.4 upgrade. We had it done to our 97 850 and since then, two 98 70 series vehicles. Some people have noted it happening at speed, but we've never had it crop up except at idle. The car skips a beat (misfires) and then runs rough for several seconds, then it disappears. In fact, if you search the board (or other Volvo boards) for skip and dip, there's a ton of input on it. When it happened on our 97, in 98, one call to the dealer and they were right on it. The car was under warranty. When it happened in 2002 to our first 70 series, it was not under warranty, but the dealership we took it to also knew exactly what to do and fixed it with a ten minute trip to a service bay--no charge. Now, in 2008, every dealership we've called is giving us horror stories about rebuilding throttle bodies, changing cam sensors, even replacing distributors, with estimates...well, you can imagine. When I ask about the motronic upgrade, the silence is deafening. You might think we were asking them about a repair on an Edsel. I even gave one place the service bulletin info and he said "That's great we still need to have it here until the problem shows up so we can diagnose it properly". When I told him it often fails to misfire for a week he laughed and said "Well, I guess you should think about a loaner!"

I think I'm going to buy an ECU upgrade rather than mess with this. I'll get the problem fixed and better performance too. One would think there is someone out there who can flash the motronic upgrade to my ECU, but I can't find anyone.

DS