Aisin TG-81SC

Aisin's transverse eight-speed for Volvo — in the S60, V60, S80, V70, V40, S90, XC40 and C40.

It is effectively Volvo's only modern automatic, so almost any Volvo of the last decade that is not a manual has one, and advice about a Volvo automatic from that period is advice about this gearbox.

Its dominant complaint is a jerk or a hesitation at low speed, particularly on the change into second and when rolling back onto the throttle in traffic. It is very often adaptation rather than damage — these gearboxes learn, and a relearn after a battery disconnection or a software update resolves a great deal of it.

Where it is not adaptation it is fluid. Volvo presented these as filled for life and they are not; the mechatronic unit's solenoids are what worn fluid damages first, and their failure presents electrically — a gear refused, a limp mode, a solenoid code — rather than by slipping.

It is not the AWF8F35. Aisin's other transverse eight-speed is in the BMWs, MINIs and Peugeots on this site; the two are different sizes for different torque, share no parts, and a Volvo owner reading about the EAT8 has found the wrong gearbox.