V50 Reverse gear/1st gear confusion!

[fma]

I have recently purchased a 2004 Reg V50 2.0 SE.
I've now owned her for 5 days and I have had 2 near misses at the traffic lights.
I accidentally selected reverse instead of 1st gear!
I thought to get into reverse you press down & left. I seem to get into reverse by simply pushing the gearstick to the left.
I read a few drivers' reviews (on the V50) on another website and they too complained about inadvertently selecting reverse gear!
Is this unique to all V50s?
Any advise on how to overcome this problem? Can my dealers mechanics do anything to the gearbox?
Any info would be much appreciated.

[5lab]

seeing as normally when you shift into first you have a couple of mins wait, you could always shift into 2nd then into first (ie straight up) should help avoid the problems?

[fma]

5lab,
Thanks for your advice. I will give that a try tonight.

[Rooster]

When s40/v50's first came out they had nothing, but on 05m/y models the gearlever bleebs to tell you you've selected reverse, on the new 06m/y cars its gone to a vw style where you have to push the gearlever down to select reverse.

I believe volvo have a kit to convert 04 and 05m'y cars to do the same as the 06's.

I agree tho i think that reverse and first are far to close to each other and if selected quickly then can reverse can be selected instead of 1st.

[123456789qwerty]

you seem to have a problem with your gear selector bushes these need renewing every so often i had mine done after great difficulty selecting 1st and eventually being unable to select reverse at all

[MarkE]

It seems like they made it extra extra springy to get into reverse to try to stop you doing it by mistake, which just means it's an arse when you're parking. Mainly, I just find it a daft piece of design.

I've done the reverse-by-mistake thing a couple of times. Scares the cr@p out of people behind you on a hill...

If there's a retrofit kit to convert it to VW-style then it's definitely worth doing at the next service.