I have an '02 S60 AWD, and the other day I drove it to a store, came back out 15 minutes later (so the car was still warm), put it in reverse, got about 2-3 feet and the car gave a shudder/clunk in the right front, then kept backing up and did it again a second or so later. I put it in drive, and the same thing happened. This clunking seems to correlate to my wheel speed, meaning it speeds up as I do. I had to get home, so I limped it home for about 5 miles. The clunking was much more pronounced and violent at low speeds; at about 30 mph, it pretty much went away.


I have had transmission problems with this car in the past, took it to my local independent Volvo mechanic who flushed the tranny with some hot gun cleaning fluid (apparently this is a thing) and the transmission has been fine for about 2 years now although it doesn't like stop-and-go traffic and will slip a little after extended rush hour driving.


I've looked through the forums; most clunking seems to happen at speeds. This clunking starts at basically 0 mph and seems timed with tire rotation; as noted above, it gets better with speed, it's at its most forceful creeping along.


Thoughts, anyone?


Thanks!

 

Check the halfshafts?

 

I checked the passenger side CV shaft, it seems pretty tight and OK, although there's some evidence of grease around the inner CV boot.

I drove it again last night, and now i'm thinking the sound is coming more from the rear wheel drive shaft (it's AWD) or the T-case or whatever it's called in an AWD vehicle.

The sound it makes is very distinctive and familiar, and i finally put my finger on what it sounds like - it sounds almost exactly like the sound of using a powered piping snake to snake out my house's side sewer. At slow speeds, it sounds like something is coiling and tightening and then releasing, the the cutting head of a snake when it finally gives after the snake cable has twisted enough to create enough torque to spin the head.

Thanks for any additional thoughts you might have. I'll look on the forums for T-case/Center Differential noises.