I have had a 99 S80 T6 Volvo (87K miles) for a year and so far have had
mostly the usual false alarm readings, so overall I was pretty happy.
However, tonight the transmission all of a sudden died. I accellerated
a bit from a stop, and the car made a sound and afterwards would not be
responsive, until it stopped on an uphill part of the road. The check
engine light and the urgent transmission service message came a couple
of minutes later.

So my question is, is there any hope that this may be anything less
than a complete transmission failure? I have read that Volvo for the
most part does not repair transmissions but changes them--can it be
anything short of that?

I'd appreciate very much if a guru out here, or anyone with a similar
problem would reply briefly. Many thanks!