A good friend that has been a loyal customer brought their 1998 Volvo V70 GLT Turbo in for diagnosis. This customer owns 2 Volvo's and maintains them regularly and religiously. The car had a code for a secondary air injection pump and I found it was full of water and ended up ordering a new one. They went on a trip and then the real problems started.

I got a call 9 days later and he said he hit a hill and lost power and the CEL blinked. I told him if it is running real bad, then get to a garage, but he decided to drive it 300 miles running rough so I could work on it. I found is was missing pretty bad and after all the normal checks (P0300, P0302, and P0304 present) I came to doing a compression check and found cylinders 2 and 4 dead with less than 50psi and the other 3 at around 150-170psi. The Timing Belt was done at 75,000 miles and timing is right on.

I told the customer we would have to do a teardown to inspect it. I don't understand how one of the most reliable engines ever made could have 2 dead holes in it at 100,000 miles on it.

Here are my questions...................

Would the secondary air injection pump caused engine failure? (I doubt it)
What are the chances that the head is garbage and not just valves or a gasket?
Would it be cheaper to replace the engine or repair this maintained one?


Thank you!

 

I will bet that from driving the 300 miles he burnt the valves on 2 and 4.

 

You're probably looking at the neighborhood of $1500 to take the head off and have a valve job done. He should have listened to you when you siaid to get it to a garage. Another option is a used head and cam cover. My understanding is they are machined togehter so you should always keep them together. In other words don't just buy a head and use your existing cam cover. My guess is since the engine didn't overheat the block is still fine. A decent mechanic can take the head off in about 2-4 hours and that would not be a bad start just to see what's going on with the head.

 

I have done timing belts and other component replacements on these engines, but never tore a head off of one. I guess it cannot be all that bad - "lefty loosey, righty tighty"

Can't be any worse than the 95 Nissan 3.0L I replaced 3 intake valves in after the timing belt went on it. That was one hell of a job.

Thanks for the input guys. I will let you all know what I find unless this guy decides to replace the car.

 

The customer wants the car fixed and understands this job may run him a couple grand, but may be less depending on damage. I had the head off in about 3 hours and found the exhaust valves burned up in #2 and #4 cylinder. The head got stripped and sent out today for testing ( I think the head is fine, but better safe than sorry) and there is no damage to the top of the pistons.

Parts are ordered and all the exhaust and intake valves are getting replaced to make sure of no future issues. I showed the customer the head before we tore it down and he did not think the car could be fixed. I showed him how his maintenence has actually paid off by pointing out how clean the internal engine components are. Putting a junkyard motor in would be stupid if the maintained engine is repairable.

This turned out to be more Volvo work than I ever did working at the Volvo dealer! That's OK though! If a local independant shop can do this kind of repair on these cars, maybe saving up to $30.00 per hour on labor may be worth it in the long run for some of these customers.

 

I said 2-4 hours and you did it in 3. Told you is wasn't really too bad to take the head. Seems to me once you learn these cars, they are not bad to work on at all.

 

Glad you got it apart.
Once you do a couple it won't be bad at all.