XC70: Gearbox The Reverse clunk

[AndyB06]

Evening chaps,

Test drove and agreed a deal for a 13 plate XC70 auto today with 90k miles. Full VSH and seemingly well looked after. All good on the drive aside from a noticeable ‘clunk’ when engaging reverse. Otherwise moved through the gears nicely with the box warmed up. Will change the autobox fluid pronto when I get her home.
I’m not too familiar with the XC70 undergubbins - my first thought was that an oil change should help the clunk, but could it be suspension/awd related? I’ll obviously get a look at the condition of the gearbox torque mount when changing the oil. Have any owners had and cured this ‘problem’?

Any thoughts appreciated
Cheers

[I-S]

Try the "back yard adaption" - it worked for our V70 with its clunk into drive.

Drive the car a bit to get the gearbox warmed up (it won't adapt when cold), then find a quiet place to stop. Put car into N for a couple of seconds, then into R, let it creep a bit, back to N and gently stop. Pause a couple of seconds, then into D, creep, back to N, etc.

Try doing that 5-10 times, then drive another couple of miles and do it again.

[Tatsfield]

+1 for this approach. Had both forward and reverse "klunk" after having the ATF replaced and now the box behaves as it should. At first I didn't think the "adaptation" process was going to work but since carried out I'd forgotten that the box misbehaved and now it seems normal.

[AndyB06]

My problem has now become a rather heavy clunk into drive!

I’ve done two sump dumps on the box, this oil having never been changed in 92k miles. Must say I was surprised just how nasty the oil was - black and very smelly. Metal shavings in the bottom. Needs many more ‘dumps’ to clean this up methinks. My reverse clunk is now gone and the box is shifting between gears in drive nice and smoothly.. however, I was out in the sticks for a drive today (hills and snow covered road) and with the oil likely hot, it bangs into drive, really quite unnervingly. At several points on the journey home after cruising at 50mph, I stopped and started again, and she shifted into drive like normal with no bang. Back at home after driving through some traffic, the bang into D returned. I’ve tried the backyard adaption described, and will try that again tomorrow.

I think this sounds more of an adaption issue, than say a valvebody problem? If the valvebody was knackered I would have hard shifts between gears while in drive?

[I-S]

Be sure also that your levels are correct - but what you describe is similar to what we had - it did adapt out, but came and went over the course of 5.5 years that we had the car.

[Ian21401]

Daughter’s 2011 XC70 had this problem when she bought it used from Volvo main dealer with 12 months Volvo Selekt warranty. We would not have known this was a problem if it had been her first automatic but her previous V50 had been really smooth with no clunk so we realised that something was not right.
Dealer took it back for what they termed an “adaptive road test” but that didn’t solve it. It went back to dealer who reported that they had replaced the internal seals, which meant that they had had to dump the fluid as well so it now had new fluid. It seems to be smooth now.