Need opinions 98 V70 wagon with valve issues. Fix or walk aw

Spiney · Post by **Spiney** » 22 Oct 2013, 01:27

Last week our 98 V70 wagon just died while driving. Turns out the timing belt pulley broke, throwing the belt. My mechanic repaired the pulley & belt because he said he's seen some that didn't have valve damage. Ours unfortunately does. He's trying to source a rebuilt head for us.

My question to you is should we put money into repairing the head / valves or walk away from it.

The car has 120,000 miles. The belt was replaced at 68k miles 5 years ago. The pulleys were not.

We have had the car very regularly serviced. The body is good, the interior has some loose panels but is pretty good. It's an automatic NA car. I just replaced the ABS module about a month ago.

My thoughts are repair it, save for a better down payment on another car. Then in a year sell or trade it. Right now it's only worth salvage parts, it's not drivable. It's been good to us. We just vacationed with it and put on 3k miles. We generally don't put on much miles. My wife literally works 1.5 miles from our house.

She wants to not repair it. She feels we bought it used in 2007 and got 6 years out of it. We paid $7900for it in 2007 with 67k miles. We did put about $5k in it over the past 6 years. Had to have the dash taken off and repaired because of horrible squeaks, the secondary air pump, the ABS module 2x, cooling fan, full brake job, AC work, the HVAC controller went bad.

Our mechanic is cool. When a part is outrageous from VOLVO he will let me get it from the Internet or used, and he will put it in. Saved a ton of money that way.

What should valve repair from a broken timing belt cost? He said he'd have an estimate for me tomorrow.

We need to repair or replace. It's our main car. I have a 90 Ranger pickup with 168k on it. And we have a 96 Mustang SVT Cobra that is our sunny days only car. It's black with no dents or scratches. Previous owner never drove it in rain and we've done the same. So it stays in all winter. That's why at 17 years and 46k the undercarriage is like new.

If we look at a newer, not new Volvo say 2002-2006 which models are reliable, which one should be avoided?

Has anyone one had good experience with a lease?

Thanks in advance,

Dave & Laurie

Post by **abscate** » 22 Oct 2013, 04:33

Hmmm. About 2000 to get a new head put on. Honestly your mechanic owes you something for not replacing the pulleys and water pump with that timing belt job. Make sure that gets done this time.

Your car easily has another 50000 miles of good life left in it which is another 5-6 years of no car payments. The immediate break even point will be about 4 months. With back up transportation, this is a no-brainer to repair for me.

Post by **850 LPT** » 22 Oct 2013, 05:56

I have to agree with abscate on this one. If you really like this car, get it fixed. It's worth it if you hang on to it especially for a few more years. From what you say, it has a lot of life in it still and it would be a shame to part it out or sell it for next to nothing.
To me not having car payments is the greatest thing, and like he said, you will be ahead in a few months.

Dirk

Post by **wheelsup** » 22 Oct 2013, 07:18

It's really unfortunate (frustrating?) Volvo designed such a well engineered and built car yet put a system in place using rollers and tensionsers that fail at the heart of the car and send it to an early death. I hated VW's but they used a timing chain and rollers lubricated by engine oil internal to the car which was nice. Their weakness however was the timing chain guides - made out of cheap plastic that cracked and then pieces lodged into the rollers and jumped the chain.

From reading around, it doesn't appear as though the timing belt itself is what causes the majority of failures - looks more like a tensionser, roller, or water pump failure/seizure that shreds the belt is the reason these cars bend vales.

When did engineers lose common sense?!?

Post by **jblackburn** » 22 Oct 2013, 07:37

When did engineers lose common sense?!?

Bean counters.

But yeah, fix it. You'll not get a better car for the $2000 it would cost you to fix this one.

Post by **erikv11** » 22 Oct 2013, 08:39

The newer Volvos are more expensive to own and repair, and have higher requirement for expensive diagnostics. I agree with all of the arguments so far and would pay to fix it. You are getting much additional return on the $ 2k due to all of your previous investments over the last 6 years.

But keep in mind resale value will not be that great in another year. $3k maximum, roughly. Also, I didn't see any reports of suspension work on this car so at 130k you can expect some of those parts to start wearing out over the next 30k or so: control arms, tie rod ends, sway bar end links, struts (that last one is a biggie in terms of repair costs).

Be sure to have new valve stem seals installed on the replacement head, Victor Reinz brand only.

Post by **abscate** » 22 Oct 2013, 09:10

The beautiful thing is you are on the the flat, perpetual 3000 USD resale part of the depreciation curve as long as the car is a well running daily driver. Balance every repair against 4 months of new car payments for ROI.

Post by **erikv11** » 22 Oct 2013, 09:19

Smart post I agree

speedyucf · Post by **speedyucf** » 22 Oct 2013, 20:24

A v70 with no dash rattle and in condition like that with only 130k miles.. I would keep it, spend the money, make sure it's done right. Is your guy independent Volvo guy? The v70 is solid and if fixed and taken care of you can surely expect to get to 250k, if you wanted to.

Post by **cn90** » 22 Oct 2013, 20:33

Get a used head with low mileage on ebay or local junkyard.
Replace the valve seals before install.
Labor should be around $1000, it is a labor-intensive job.

On the issue of Timing Belt: replace everything in the TB compartment (WP, pulleys x 2, tensioner, new TB, front cam seals), detail below:
https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/forums ... hp?t=53722

Anyway, all this will set you back about $2000 or so. Personally, I'd keep this b/c you know the car and a decent used car these days will cost about $10K.