Hello all, I am new to this forum and recently bought a 2003 Volvo S40, her name is Helga and she is black with a tan leather interior. Its a one owner and only has 53k miles on it, about 5k a year put on her (probably owned by an old lady). I bought it on EBAY for a steal and am pretty pleased with her, but I've been getting 14.5 mpg's on its first tank of 89 octant. I attribute this to the fact she probably hasn't been running in a while, she had a long shipment up from FL, I live in MA and the temp has been very cold, I've been running the heat on full, she has bald rear tires, and I might need to address some other maintenance issues (tranny flush, spark plugs, throttle body cleaner, MAF spray).

Moving on, I brought it to the stealership today to have them look at a check engine light, which appeared to be related to the engine thermostat that needs to be replaced. Fine, whatever, I will pay for that (336), but they also said the timing belt needs to be replaced and quoted me for $600. I was under the impression the timing belt gets replaced between 105-120k miles, but the stealer is telling me in addition to those miles it needs to be replaced every 10 years. Fact or Fiction?

 

Fact. Especially on the older S40s. I've seen 10 or 12 year old belts on the P2s with hardly any cracking. The 2000-2004.5 S/V40s seem to crack easier. I've seen them with severe cracking at only 7 or 8 years old.