What could br causing a harsh clunking noise when I shift from park to reverse?
What is your question?
When I went to put my 2000 Saab 9-3 in reverse it made a loud, harsh clunking noise when I did so. Then when I put it in drive, on the dash, the light stayed on reverse even though I was in drive. Also, the check engine light came on. So I parked it and parked it to see if it would make that clunking noise when I put it now reverse gain and it did. Dash still said I was in reverse. When I turned the car off and turned it back on, it didn't happen again and everything was fine. Any ideas on what would be causing that?? When you plugged a code reader in, it didn't give any codes??
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Goodmorning alyssamontano,
There is a mechanism inside your transmission called a "locking pawl, or parking pawl". Its job is to lock the transmission in place while the vehicle is in park. It does the same job as the parking brake ... basically. When there is excessive force on this pawl it will make a very audible noise when selecting another gear. Most common causes: put into park before the tires were 100% stopped and setting the parking brake, parking on a hill without the parking brake (it doesn't take a steep hill). Another thing it could be is the actuator for the gear selector lockout. There is an actuator that releases the gear selector when in park without the key on. Or it could be the gear selector mechanism itself.
I would lean more towards the locking pawl having too high of a load on it since the problem wasn't repeatable.
To avoid this, and help diagnosing, when you park your vehicle, ensure it is totally stopped (as normal) and set the parking brake before you release the foot brake. If parking on a hill, make sure your tire is resting on the curb.
