Hi! My 2006 V70 suffered a burned valve on cylinder #5, and the repair shop told me that it's going to be $3,000 to replace it. Obviously this is not great. Since the repair is going to be so expensive, and since my car already has about 180,000 miles on it, I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it to repair the car or to put the money towards a newer used car (probably something around 2010 with about 100,000 miles on it). Truth be told, I love this car, there really aren't any features I would want in a newer car, and I'd much rather keep this one, but I don't want to do that if I'm going to have to keep pouring a ton of money into it on unexpected repairs. So, what kind of maintenance issues am I likely to experience on the 2006 going forward, and what's your feeling on all of this?

 

having an expensive engine repair does nothing to predict other potential issues with your car. 3000 seems on the high side - but the head does need to come off to replace the valve. My guess is the shop is quoting a full machine shop R+R on the head. Given your miles and uncertainty on how long to keep the car, as a plan B you can shop for a used cylinder head (car-part.com is a good resource to get a read on used part pricing) and simply have the shop swap out (doing the head gasket, timing belt and PCV as part of the process) to save some $$. Typical big ticket repairs on these cares are the timing belt and the PCV system so doing as part of the valve repair gets those done pretty much for the cost of the parts.

 

what are the options, fix it or junk it?
I'd have a go at fixing it myself, anywhere from $300 to 600 for resurface the head and valves depending how many are damaged.
Theres a multitude of youtube vids for this. $120 for a gasket set and some other bits needed.
Its not worth paying a shop to do it but diy is worth a shot.