Volvo RWD 200 Forum

Today 0n the way home from work, I swung out into the passing lane and stood into the thottle to the floo, only to have the car fall on it's face. The longer I stayed in the kickdown mode, the more the RPM'S dropped, and dropped, until I had to let off because of the speed dropping off so much and I was on the highway, so I was losing speed rapidly. But if I let off the throttle enough for it to shift back into overdrive, it ran fine, and ran fine the rest of the way home.

The tank gauge was almost in the red, on the red line. I gassed it up, and floored it a few more times on residential streets with 35 mile an hour speed limit, and so it wasn't identical to the highway speed kickdown, but it downshifted like it should and seemed alright when the pedal was floored and didn't drop off on the RPM'S like when on the highway.

I will try it again tomorrow when I am getting onto the highway, and see if the symotoms re-appear, and report back.

The bellows hose feeding air to the throttle body can collapse due to increased draw of air when throttle is opened. Release the throttle and it pops right back to normal shape. Hose gets old and floppy. Problem can be worse if filter is dirty.
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David Hunter

Well,
I drove it in this morning and floored it on the highway. It accelerated normally and the kickdown worked properly with 3/4 tank of gas. I guess when it is getting down into reserve, it wasn't gettting enough gas? I have never had this problem on my 1987 245. Even if the gauge was in the red, it would still kickdowm and accelerate properly. Fluke? I normally don't let my tank get that low, but it still shouldn't starve for gas when the gauge needle isn't quite in the red yet?

I'm going to guess either a bad intank pump or the small section of hose that is between the intank pump and the fuel sender has rotted or has a hole in it.

I had this same problem with my '93 245 and it was the intank pump.

Have you verified that the intank pump is running?

Thanks for the response. I am sorry that I forgot to mention that I installed a new in tank pump a month ago, and it has been running fine until this happened and the pre-pump hose was the new style and it was perfect, no tears or holes.

Plus, the gas tank was well below half full which about half full is where it will usually start sucking air if the in tank hose is rotted off. I am getting ready to leave for work now which involves drivinv it on the highway again. I will try it again. As I have learned in life in general, usually once a problem starts it rarely just goes away on it's own.