I just started driving a 2007 Volvo XC90 3.2 AWD. It has 130k miles on it and seems very well maintained.
It has a grinding/humming noise that seems to come from the front passenger side and that starts when I shift into drive. Then it shifts rather rough from 2nd to 3rd gear. It actually almost double shifts. I can see the RPM jump a little... , and depending how hard I accelerate it almost knocks when shifting into those gears.
The grinding noise seems to get less once I hit about 40mph and the shifting issue seems to be less once the car warms up.
Any advice? Would love to figure it our without having to take it to a mechanic.
Thanks

 

My '07 xc90 awd has the same problem. Did you discover the problem?

 

does the sound change with the gear shifts or is it more proportional to road speed? have you pulled the dipstick to check color? Probably the best starting point is to drain the transmission fluid from the pan and run through a paper filter to see if you have metal bits/burnt fluid etc (signs of internal damage to the transmission). The question of the change in sound is to rule out an axle issue, but if you have hard shifting then that would lead me to suspect an internal transmission issue. About the only thing you can do without big ticket transmission work is a drain/fill as new/clean fluid may help the solenoids/valve body do their job.