S40 powershift. New transmission
 

Afternoon all,

I have a S40 2009 powershift and i had the fluid changed but the gears are still slipping. I have had the bad news this weekend and looks like i need a whole new transmission or a repair to the current one. Please can anyone let me know if they know of anywhere that does this? and for a decent price?

Ok, sit down for this....

Planet Gears in Peterborough recently repaired mine under warranty. It was slipping and the ‘Transmission Performance Low’ message kept coming up.

It required a new control board and solenoids and both clutches were replace.

Total cost £2280 inc vat, if it did not need the clutches that would have made it £1500 inc vat.

Good news is the car drives like new!

A new gearbox is around £6000 from Volvo. I would not recommend fitting a second hand one as you can not guarantee the condition, no matter what the mileage is. Mine had done 105000 but Planet Gears (who do 50-60 of these a month on Fords) see them fail as early as 35000 miles. That said they did say that it is far more common on the Fords than it is the Volvos even though it is essentially the same box all bar the software.

I honestly can not recommend Roy at Planet Gears enough, if your wallet is deep enough that is😳

Thank you for that. Ive been looking around at all different places for a price to fix this and looks like its going to be around the £2000 mark. The cheapest quote i got so far was £1895 but its all the way in essex and im in southampton. Do you now get the transmission fluid changed regular? How long ago did you get yours repaired?

Mine was repaired only two weeks ago. Some might think that’s a huge amount to spend on a car of that age and mileage, however I got it for a good price when I bought it and the car is solid and I am confident it has another 100k Miles in it no problem.

Roy advised that although the service interval is recommended at 37500 on these gearboxes he advises changing the fluid every 20-25K. There is an internal filter that can only be changed when it’s stripped so by changing the oil early there is less chance of contaminating that.

The way to look at it is if you had to change a clutch and DMF at 100k most people would accept that as reasonable. These boxes are essentiall a manual box with two clutches so in reality it is much the same.

If you have breakdown cover drive the car far enough away to get National breakdown (usually 1/2 mile from home) and the get the Transmission Performance Low’ message up, pull over, don’t stop the engine or clear the code and ask them to recover it to the garage of your choice. Wherever it goes will need it for a few days so just get the train there when it’s done.

So since your repair is the car driving perfect? have you had any other issues with the car? mine has full service history and seems like its in perfect condition except the gearbox issue which is really annoying

Since it’s been repaired it’s driving absolutely perfect. No slipping, no juddering, no thump when it changes gear at low speed. It is literally as smooth as glass and like driving a new car again. I have no other issues whatsoever with the car. That of course doesn’t mean something may crop up, but it’s done 106000 now. I usually do around 300-500 miles a week so I expect something to require a routine change soon. Next on my list is new brakes all round and then new bushes and suspension where necessary.

I am very happy with the outcome. I seriously would recommend Roy at Planet Gears, I know Peterborough is a trek for you but there are not many people who really know what they are doing with these gearboxes.

Roy also puts his own 12000 mike warranty on the work so you are covered if it fails, which I doubt it would.

Im stuck with what i should now do. Should i repair the car and pay near on £2000 to do it? Sell the car to cut my loses and only lose a bit of money ie around £1000 or do i keep the car? i dont know what to do. it has 74k miles on the clock. other than the transmission its immaculate. will it last 3 years after the repair? will i need to shed out more money on other things.

Get in contact with Tim Williams on T5D5. He'll be able to advise/offer help on it.

http://forums.t5d5.org/profile/160-tim-williams/

He knows pretty much everything there is to know about Volvo's.

Rock and a hard place I'm afraid. It's going to be hard to recoup any money by selling it with the gearbox issue, so, if it was me, I'd fix it and put it down to one of life's many buggers.
If you sell you will have to buy another car with no guarantee what that may hold in store. With the repair it will at least be the devil you know.