Dear fellow Volvo lovers,
I am still in severe shock. I managed to drive my 2002 Volvo S40 turbo without water... 1 liter found in radiater. How I lost the water and why my gauge did not show is still a mystery. Turbo seals failed and tried to push oul through the inter cooler into the engine. Engine did not seize but there is no compression and the transistors on the plugs melted.
I really can not think straight due to shock. The garage where I just 2 weeks ago had the timing belt replaced want to take the head off to see the damage, but I do not want them to. Think I need to take the car to a reputable engine rebuilder...??? The moment the head comes off, we have parts all over the place.
I please need advice and have decided to not make any decisions before I get over the shock.

 

Sorry to hear that - Unfortunately the S40 is one of the few Volvos that does not have a low coolant warning system -

You might want to start looking for another car - the repairs on your current one will cost more than the value of the car.

 

if there's no compression, then you likely have valve damage (or worse?) and as your tech noted, the head needs to come off to repair. Given the overheat, its kind of a toss up as to replace the head or replace the engine - either case labor is going to be the big cost, so unless you're doing the work yourself, even going with a used head or used replacement engine (search car-part.com to get get an idea of the $$ for head or complete engine), its probably gonna be $2K or more. As Hoonk noted, you can probably find a replacement in that price range.

 

I agree with the others - put the money into a new car and avoid the pain of trying to deal with a rebuilder. You might find one that has some interior or other problems that you could fix by cannibalizing your current car to fix easily. The really great ones cost a lot, and the less expensive ones don't always do a good job. If it was mine, I'd probably cheap out and find a boneyard motor to drop in it myself, but I'm more stubborn (dumb?) than most.

I'd also have to wonder if the garage that did the timing belt didn't mess something up - it's almost always standard procedure to change out the water pump when doing a timing belt (since swapping just the pump 10,000 miles later will take as much labor as the entire timing belt job, while swapping it out during the TB job takes almost no extra time or effort). Given the timing, I'd be very suspicious that they may have done something wrong - maybe didn't get the pump sealed properly, or didn't properly connect one of the hoses that come off for a TB job. Of course, if it was a bad hose connection, they would have no doubt fixed the problem so as to hide their mistake - not likely they could do that with a badly installed water pump. Or - it's always possible that the TB "kit" came with a bad water pump... stranger things have happened (not likely if it was a "quality kit", but there are some very questionable parts coming out of "non-OEM manufacturers" these days.

 

Thank you all for your replies. I normally check the work done on my cars or do it myself. This work I did not check because it is covered up. I did not want the water pump replace as the car has only 103 000 km on the clock. I can just imagine the pain of an engine rebuild.
Such a lovely car. I am a bit emotional and worried about my current ability to make good decisions

 

I would not consider any replacement car that did not have a low coolant warning system, I've seen too many older cars have cooling system failures and the customers don't notice it until it's too late.

 

Thank you for this advice

 

I really appreciate the advice on a warning system. I built a cut out system on oil pressure for my Nissan Patrol. I believe you must have confidence in the car to enjoy the ride. So basically I am always going to be nervous driving the car with no warning. It is amazing how one easily ASSUMES the engine management has everything sorted.
So now I am wondering if there is a way of adding such a warning system...?