Hi, I have a 1995 volvo 850 with automatic tranny...all forward gears work fine but reverse does not engage unless you stick your foot out the door and roll the car back 2-4 feet then you can feel reverse engage. does this sound like a linkage prob or something more serious?

No reverse on this model almost always means a cracked cage in the transmission.Good news is you just have to have the cage changed and not much else and all should be fine and won't cost too much.

It may just need servicing/adjusting.

Your reverse gear is actually first gear ... when you select reverse another 'cog' fits into the toothed wheels to change the direction of first gear ... to give you reverse...

It may be a sticky valve or just a bit of adjustment (workshop job..) that is required.

What you can try ..

Start the car ... move the lever through all the positions several times (foot on brake..). Keep your foot on the brake and then put it in reverse and rev the car. Hard!

Try doing it several times.

An auto transmission works on valves opening and closing. Reverse gear - in comparison with the forward gears - is seldom used. The reverse valve can 'stick'. Try forcing it to open ... frighten it ... but keep your foot on the brake...

run fault codes and look for faulty TCM and reverse servo .

Gears slipping ****** might starting to go

the cable which attaches your accelerator pedal to your engine has disconnected or is broken internally check cable

The seals inside your transmission are bad and leaking by and they don't start to seal until the tranny fluid warms up and swells the seals. To temporarily fix this problem you can pour some brake fluid into your transmission fluid. This will swell the seal in the transmission and it should start working again. This is only a temporary fix however, eventually you will ned to replace or rebuild your tranny. I used this method on a turbo trans 350 and got a year of service out of it that way before I had to replace the tranny. Just do not put too much brake fluid into the tranny, I would recommend one or two capfuls to start with.

is it manuel or automatic? sounds like internal trans gear problem. gonna have to bite the bullet and take it to transmission shop

It would most likely be the tranny.

I have also personally seen/fixed a 4L60E that had a broken reverse servo piston,it is the piece that engages the low/reverse band under a cover in the valve body area,a piston with a band engagement pin. Anyone that has this problem can have it repaired in the vehicle,its worth checking BEFORE replacing the trans unless the fluid is burn't or there are other symptoms present. Good luck and hope this helps. keep me posted, be glad to help

Check for trans codes then I would suggest a fluid change if there are no trouble codes, many times these kinds of problems are caused by a little piece of dirt causing a shift solenoid to stick.