I was at the tail end of a trip from Massachusetts to Chicago, the 2006 XC70 was filled with stuff, and so the dog was in the passenger seat beside me. As we pulled out of a toll booth and accelerated to 65 mph, her nose hit the shift lever--and we went from Drive into Manual 1. It's a weird quirk that the xc70 transmission is designed like this--it just slides into Manual 1 with a slight bump. We went from around 2,200 rpm to over 7500 rpm in the red zone in a blink. Of course, you could hear the engine race, if you could hear--but I'm deaf, so it took me a few moments, maybe 10 seconds to figure out what was happening, then another 20 seconds maybe to get to the side of the road. By then the dash told me the engine had lost oil pressure.

It shut down easily, and ten minutes later restarted--pressure was back up--and got it back home again. A week later after a little around town driving the 'check engine' light came on--took it to my shop, where they hooked it up to the computer, and let loose a deep long sigh.

Basically, they said it was about gone-. It only has 65K miles, but they said it could go in 2K miles maybe more, and not to take it out on the highway again.

So my dilemma is: replacement engine or new car? I hate having to get a new car at this time, especially in this economy, so my question is mostly about the viability of the replacement: can I get an oem engine, or do I have to go with a remanufactured engine? What would a job like this involve in terms of time and money?

I feel bad asking so many questions for my first post here on the forum.

Thanks in advance to anyone who has suggestions.

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The engine computer should have printed any damage to the engine. Could it be another fault that just happened to pop up now?

 

Good question. My local mechanic who checked the engine didn't give us the print out, they basically summarized it by saying the engine would likely go on us--but weren't more specific. To make matters worse, they said they erased the data, so we can't take it to another place--unless someone has an idea how to pull up old data?

I know--we need a new mechanic. But this aside, I plan to bring the car elsewhere for a 2nd --. What would the likely points of damage be in a high-rpm situation like I experienced? Transmission? Seals?

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The worse is motor damage.
Ask if it has a rod knock.
It might have bent a connecting rod. If that is the case it could most likely go at any time. But if there is no engine noise you might be ok for a little while.

Codes will not really tell you the motor is on its way out. There would be other signs there.

 

As it turned out, no rod knock. I went to an independent Volvo shop and they performed various tests, and suggested we focus on the timing--so we replaced the timing & serpentine belts, cvvt hubs, and cam solenoids--and flushed the transmission. It's running nice & smooth, but we will see how it holds up or if there was any LT damage.

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Glad all is well now.