Hi,
My 2002 S60 with 100,000 miles (I was just going to make an appointment for the service) just died (dldn't accelerate) while I was driving. I managed to pull over to the side of the road. I turned the engine off and waited a few minutes. When I tried to turn the engine back on, it made a kind of grinding (horrible) noise, started to turn over, and then just died. Car has been well cared for, regularly serviced, etc.
Any thoughts about what the problem is?

 

Could be a number of things, hopefully nothing major. Hopefully that noise was a starter or something.

 

keeping fingers crossed! I've had three Volvos and nothing like this ever happened.

 

If it's a non turbo it could be the ECM. Extended warranty for 10 years or 200000 miles. Your description of the horrible noise could be anything but the sudden loss of acceleration poins to an ECM (electronic throttle control module) failure.

 

I don't know...doesn't sound like any kind of computer failure to me. Sounds more like a broken timing belt. Has the timing belt been serviced?

 

I was going to replace the timing belt at the 100,000 mile service . . .

I bought the car used from the Volvo dealer with 90,000 miles. They said the previous owners had had all scheduled maintenance work done with them. So I assumed the first timing belt had been changed back at 50,000 miles.

 

The first timing belt change is "officially" at 105k miles although changing it sooner is a wise thing. There's a black plastic cover held on with a couple of torx screws and a couple of clips on the top right of the engine you can take off and see if you still have a timing belt. You can probably pull up on that cover on the corner and peek in there with a flashlight if you don't want to take it off. It'll be obvious if it's broken. Good luck.

Steve

 

ETM, ECM is NOT covered.

 

The car just stopped because of a faulty fuel pump (very expensive labor costs to install new fuel pump).
Mysteriously, the grinding noise when turning the key to start the engine is gone.
I was going to wait until the actual 100,000 mile service to change the timing belt, but based on this forum's advice, decided to have it changed now.
Thanks for all your responses!

 

This fuel pump was not covered under a recall? you might ask.

 

I just purchased an '03 S60 two weeks ago and on the Carfax it shows an open recall concerning the fuel pump. I haven't booked time at the dealer yet to have them check to see if the work was done on mine but I'd check to see if this incident of yours was covered by that recall as well.

Steve

 

Well you guys are great. You saved me $700.00!
I called the 1-800 Volvo USA number. They checked the vin # and said that particular fuel pump wasn't under a recall. BUT, it turns out that part has a 10 year or 150,000 mile warranty. I had the car towed to a Volvo service center to diagnose and replace it, hopefully there won't be any problems replacing it for free.
Thanks again.