Recently, my wife and I came across a 2012 Volvo S60 with the 5-cylinder engine. This car only has 54,980 miles on it and has been kept in a garage nearly all of its life. The price was 8900 dollars. The seller even provided a certified VIN background check with the purchase, which showed no major issues or accidents. The car looked great and had no leaks that I could see. We purchased the car and were very happy with it, until I checked the oil. We had only driven the car about 1500 miles, and it was 2 qts of oil low. I thought the seller may not have topped off the oil properly during an oil change, since this engine holds 6.5 quarts of oil, so I topped it off. I checked it again after driving another 1500 miles, and it was 2 quarts low. I did some research and found the oil problems these cars have, and could not believe Volvo isn't doing anything to help their customers. Since I am the 2nd owner, I don't expect Volvo to help me, but the amount of cars Volvo produced with this problem is crazy.

Now to the embarrassing part of this post. I am a 57-year-old retired automotive technician/NASCAR instructor. Nearly all of my life, I have always been very thorough when checking out a used car, but this one slipped through. My wife and I fell in love with the interior of the car, and was the biggest reason we purchased it. With all of my experience being Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and NASCAR related, I came here to get advice on repairing my Volvo.

So here I am, begging for advice from some experienced Volvo techs. I am sure the rings are my problem, and to be more specific, the oil rings. Can someone tell me, what is wrong with these rings? Or, is this a cylinder bore issue? Can I re-ring this engine, and it last me another 100k miles, or should I replace the short block? Being such low miles, I'd like to use the engine I have, but if it has block issues, I will go with an engine short block.

Please help. Any advice is appreciated.
Thank you,
John Johnson

 

There's been plenty of posts describing the issue with the pistons and rings that caused premature wear. The problem is really centers on specific Volvo engine models that got a "new" piston design (mostly 2012 Volvo S60 Turbos) that proved to wear out the rings prematurely. You can probably google and find the factory service bulletin which describes the remedy but essentially its to replace the pistons with the updated design and to install the new spec'd rings. You'd also need to inspect the bore to make sure its not been damaged.