Hey everyone,

So I just got shafted this weekend. I've got a 98 S70 and was on the freeway doing about 70-75 when I hear a rubber on plastic sound and then the engine looses power and shuts down. I coast off to the side of the road and sure enough, its the timing belt.

The belt didn't break, but it came off its gears and wore right through the plastic housing (the noise I heard). So there's a thin hole in the housing and the belt is just hanging out of it. I'm pretty mechanically incompetent - does this mean that the tensioner failed?

The crappy thing is that I just had the belt replaced maybe 20,000 miles ago (when the car was at 95k miles), so this definitely shouldn't have happened. I'm at a loss.

So I gather from reading other threads that at that speed during failure, the head and pistons probably aren't salvagable - is that correct? Does anyone know the approx. cost to replace the engine? I'm a poor medical student, so I want to figure out the best way to proceed.

Thanks!

 

Yes one of the pulleys failed.

I will bet the valves are bent. The pistons might still be fine.

 

This happened to my 1998 Volvo V70. All of the valves were bent.

 

Thanks Tech - any recommendations for what I should do? What did you do with your car, jharbut?

 

You can replace the valves or do a motor.