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Bruce - I respect your opinions, and I have learned a lot from your posts over the years. You have certainly seen orders of magnitude more Volvos than I have. However, my personal experience with 240 series OD automatics has been quite different:
1988 244GL - No OD problems at all.
1989 244GL - Only put about 400 miles on the car before it became a parts car, no OD problems.
1989 244 - Paid $610 for car. Some PO had bypassed OD system by normal method, presumably because of problems.
1990 244DL - No OD problems resulting in failure, but pre-service inspection/maintenance showed solenoid wires with badly cracked insulation. Repair required removal of the solenoid. The OD circuit functioned properly for a year afterward until oldest son crashed it.
1991 244 - Also crashed by oldest son. Became parts car. No OD problems while the tranny was on this car (see ’92 244 below).
1991 244DL - OD "died" on freeway while driving car home from Maryland. Replaced the relay with one from an escorting 244 (the '92 below) which had the solenoid bypassed. The replacement worked for a while, but quit at the next gas stop. Pounded it on the glove box opening and it began working again. This vehicle will get a bypass before going into service.
1992 244DL - Upshift into OD was delayed until about 60 MPH rather than the usual 45 MPH (probably a problem with the tranny, which had other shift sequence problems). Replaced entire tranny with donor unit from '91 244 above. Six months later, OD died. Traced problem to cracked insulation on wiring from shifter (I forget if it was upstream or downstream from the connector). OD died again about 8 months later (probably due to an intermittent fault in the relay). I said *** ***** **** and did the bypass. No problems since then.
So my experience with seven admittedly old cars includes two unequivocal failures, one presumed failure, and a pending failure requiring, IMHO, intervention (a repair, by the way, that was anything but trivial). Why don't we say, 3.5/7.0 for simplicity, a 50% failure rate. From my PERSONAL perspective, this system has been the most problem-prone part of the 240s we have owned.
You are correct; the electrical circuit is simple (the hydraulic part of the system is another matter). However, I hold that it is poorly designed. The fatigue cold solder joints in the relay need no further discussion. They may not begin to fail until 10 years down the road, but the seeds of the problem were present when the vehicle rolled off the assemble line. The solenoid wiring is subjected to perhaps the most extreme environment (wild temperature fluctuations, salt, water, dirt, tranny fluid) of any piece of wiring on the car, yet, apparently no provision was made to provide it with extra protection. Overall, the whole system bears the hallmarks of being a thrown-together part of an hasty effort to adapt a three-speed tranny to four-speed operation.
I should note that an OD failure at 80 MPH is not easy on the engine or tranny. While not a safety issue in the same league as the braking or steering systems, sudden OD failure could distract a driver enough to precipitate an accident. Simply driving a vehicle with a top speed of 65 mph is enough to get you run down on some freeways.
There are indeed BrickBoard myths that implicitly overstate the prevalence of some problems. Some of these myths cause folks to spend extra money on problems on unneeded component replacements and preventative maintenance. However, in my experience and in my opinion, the OD system's reputation for unreliability is well-earned.
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