V60 2.5d D5 AWD Ocean Race.ECU/Gearbox Issue. Repair/break?

[Longdog2011]

Hello Forum
I have a 2011 Ocean Race Edition Auto - that is currently dead! And am looking for some help / advice before I put the car up for sale for breaking or scrap it (I could not bare to see it scrapped)
:: the issue:

: First of all, this happened in February, so the car has gone into total lockdown; I don't think the garage knew what to do with it, so ignored it for awhile. Then had a look, didn't know how to fix it, so said it's beyond economical repair (which it might well be).

: When the car wouldn't start back in Feb, the car thought it was in gear, when it was in fact in park; when I turned on the engine the display said "shift to park", but it was already in park.
: This same problem happened about 12 / 18 months previously and was fixed. It was fixed by the same garage, but the guy who worked there and fixed has since left the area.

: As I was told it wasn't worth fixing, the car got moved to a friends farm, whilst I try to sell it.
But, now I think the garage didn't spend much time working on it / trying to work out how to fix it, as they're such a busy garage. (the reason I think this is, I was told they'd stripped the central console, but that was in tact when it was delivered to my friends farm)

: I was told that it was and ECU problem, and that a new ECU (?) would cost around 850+vat, plus programming, plus anything else that crops up.... touching £1500 / £1750 plus...... ( whatever crops up when you start going down the rabbit hole)

: The car is a high miler. It's done 255k, nearly all motorway. I bought it 3 years ago with 230k? Full Volvo history. Excellent MOT history etc.
: After the car 'died' we had driven to the North coast of Scotland twice within 3 months, and I'd have had no qualms about doing the journey again and again.... the engine was solid.

My Questions;
Should I wave goodbye to it and put it up for sale for breaking?
Am I going down a Rabbit Hole if I attempt to get a 255k milage car fixed?

TIA

[Clan]

Originally Posted by Longdog2011

Hello Forum
I have a 2011 Ocean Race Edition Auto - that is currently dead! And am looking for some help / advice before I put the car up for sale for breaking or scrap it (I could not bare to see it scrapped)
:: the issue:

: First of all, this happened in February, so the car has gone into total lockdown; I don't think the garage knew what to do with it, so ignored it for awhile. Then had a look, didn't know how to fix it, so said it's beyond economical repair (which it might well be).

: When the car wouldn't start back in Feb, the car thought it was in gear, when it was in fact in park; when I turned on the engine the display said "shift to park", but it was already in park.
: This same problem happened about 12 / 18 months previously and was fixed. It was fixed by the same garage, but the guy who worked there and fixed has since left the area.

: As I was told it wasn't worth fixing, the car got moved to a friends farm, whilst I try to sell it.
But, now I think the garage didn't spend much time working on it / trying to work out how to fix it, as they're such a busy garage. (the reason I think this is, I was told they'd stripped the central console, but that was in tact when it was delivered to my friends farm)

: I was told that it was and ECU problem, and that a new ECU (?) would cost around 850+vat, plus programming, plus anything else that crops up.... touching £1500 / £1750 plus...... ( whatever crops up when you start going down the rabbit hole)

: The car is a high miler. It's done 255k, nearly all motorway. I bought it 3 years ago with 230k? Full Volvo history. Excellent MOT history etc.
: After the car 'died' we had driven to the North coast of Scotland twice within 3 months, and I'd have had no qualms about doing the journey again and again.... the engine was solid.

My Questions;
Should I wave goodbye to it and put it up for sale for breaking?
Am I going down a Rabbit Hole if I attempt to get a 255k milage car fixed?

TIA

The mileage doesn't make any difference, You are not taking the car to people familiar with them, Give it to a volvo specialist who knows them inside out with the correct wiring diagrams and who knows what he or she is doing . 👍

[Longdog2011]

Thank you. I did cold call into my local Volvo Dealership garage and spoke to one of the mechanics there.
Their reply was "well, with that mileage you'll probably be looking at a new car anyway!" Obviously they need to sell cars.

If the gear thing hadn't have happened, as I said, I'd have happily driven the car up and down to Scotland, friggin daily.... the engine was straight as die, sound as a pound...
But how much do you spend on a high miler to get fixed? When I could buy a lower mileage Audi A4 for £2.5K? The potential cost of the repair?

I LOVE the V60 (although I had zero speeding tickets before I got it & I've had 5 in the last 3 years!)....
I'll look for some, non dealership, specialists and see what they say... thank you.

[Simmy]

if you like the car its worth fixing get it to someone who knows these cars. a 2.5kreplacment car may also develop problems.when fixed your volvo should serve you well for many more years and dont for get money has very little value in 2024 as folk regularly pay £450plus for lease cars per month

[Longdog2011]

Thank you. I've looked up Volvo Specialists in Devon from the ones listed on this forum, and will contact them tomorrow to see what they think.
I was worried that I might spend 1.5 / 2k getting it fixed; then being a high miler, things just start 'pinging' and breaking all over the place from there on in.

[Tannaton]

If you are getting a start disabled and "Shift to Park" message it's not the gearbox, it's the guts in the selector mechanism.

If you said it was banging or slipping between shifts, that would be different....

As has been said, get someone who understands them and has the appropriate diagnostic gear to look at it.

[Longdog2011]

There was no 'banging or slipping between shifts'
.
One day a drove back from Scotland, 100% perfect. 2 days later went to drive it and the "shift to park" (when it was in park) came up.

Thank you all.... I was ready to scrap it - but will get it in somewhere to have a proper look.

[scissors]

Good luck, hope you get it sorted. Nice cars, it would be a shame to let it go. Please let us know how you get on.

[Stu B]

Best of luck with it, I’d add to the above that it needs a Volvo specialist to diagnose and fix it. Surely related to an inhibitor switch or mechanism of some kind in the gear selector arrangement or a logged ECU/TCU fault to tell the car it isn’t in park so not to start the engine.

I had a BMW E36 that did similar years ago and wouldn’t start, no message in the dash as the car wasn’t as advanced as a V60 of course. I was baffled but a bash on the gear selector and transmission tunnel soon woke it up. The contacts in the inhibitor switch needed cleaning when I got home, never did it again. Nice low tech fix but the same principle applies