I was driving my 01 S40 and I heard this interesting noise. I stopped the car, looked under the hood and there it was - the broken timing belt.

the s40 engines are built in a way that if the timing belt brakes, if the little things moves just about one millimeter you basically break the engine.

We put on a new timing belt, just to test if there was going to be compression... and the car started fine! I assume it helped that I was able to turn off the engine really fast, while the car was still running..

I think the reason for the broken timing belt early (97k miles) is because there was an oil leak from the sealing ring. I went to the dealership, and I got a new one for $10, but the person at the counter asked me which one I need, the exhaust or the intake one. We matched my old one to the exhaust or at least that is what he told me it was. However, I thought I needed the intake one? My question is, is it likely that maybe the previous owner had worked on a car, and had mixed it up? Or the guy at the dealership had mixed it up? Or do you need the exhaust side? I already put the new sealing ring, my goal is to watch for the oil leak in the future.

Thank you, and sorry for the long post.

 

You really cannot mix them up to bad. One way the pulley would not fit back on and the other it would dump oil as soon as it was started.

 

good to hear. thank you. hopefully the oil leak will be fixed now

 

Fingers crossed for you.