Volvo Forums - Volvo Enthusiasts Forum

I'm hoping someone here can shed some light on a problem with my 1999 S80. I purchased the car with a little body damage, nothing major, just needed a headlight, hood and bumper cover. Anyway the car has 86000 miles on it and after I repaired the body damage I started to drive the car. It ran great, went down the road well and everything worked. I drove it off and on for about 2 months during the winter, usually when we got a lot of snow because I liked the way it handled in the snow. I parked the car for about a month. After a month had passed I thought I would take it for a drive just to keep the rotors from getting rusty and to get it's blood flowing a little. It started and ran as usual for about a mile or so then suddenly the car started running rough and a warning indicator read "urgent service needed " or something like that, I don't quite remember what. I took it back to my garage and checked it out. The #1 cylinder was missing. ( the cylinder closest to the timing belt anyway, I think that is 1) I ruled out the spark plug and the coil pack. I did a compression check and the cylinder is "0". Nothing. I pressurized the cylinder with air and rolled the motor over with a socket on the crankshaft pulley bolt and no resistance at all. The other cylinders act as they should with the same test. When you have the engine at TDC you can here the air pressure pumped into the cylinder coming out the tail pipe, so clearly it's an exhaust valve problem. The car starts right up, sounds normal, makes no abnormal sounds such as ticking or knocking, it just runs like a any car that dropped a cylinder. Rev's won't go past 4 grand but it climbs up there like normal. Could this be anything but a burnt valve. Maybe a broken spring or stuck valve? It seems like a burnt valve would at least have some compression. Sorry for the long story.