In this work, we present high-resolution solutions for viscoelastic 4:1 planar contraction flow problems using a transient finite element method based on the fractional step method (FSM) and stabilization techniques (DEVSS-G/DG) with linear equal-order interpolation function. The Oldroyd-B model was used as the constitutive equation. A parallel multi-frontal algorithm was implemented to enhance computational speed and all solutions were obtained on a parallel machine. The vortex intensity and the re-attachment length of corner vortex show good mesh-convergent behavior and are compared with previous results from the literature. In particular, the present results are in good agreement with the predictions of the high-resolution finite volume method of Alves et al. [15]. This may be the first case that quantitative agreement is obtained between studies using different numerical methods for the benchmark problem of 4:1 planar contraction flow. As there has been little quantitative agreement in the previous investigations and only few simulation results with highly refined meshes exit, this study may well be regarded as accurate and meaningful in the sense that reasonable convergence is achieved for prediction of 4:1 planar contraction flow using transient finite element methods. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.