This paragraph give insight as to my purchase. My wife took on a new job out of the house and needed a vehicle. We decided on an AWD car. Subaru came to mind and I started looking. Well, I found a very nice looking and very clean 2007 XC70 Volvo with 183,000 miles. It is an online auction car. Bought with only as seen through the internet and a series of very lovely pictures showing how straight and clean the vehicle was. There was also a link to a vehicle report that showed 2 owners and no accidents. So far so good! The vehicle was a 6 hour drive from me and was out of the question to check out the running condition without knowing a possible final price. We took a chance and waited for the auction to see how much (or little) the vehicle would sell for. We can purchase running used engines within an hour from here for $650-800 with under 150,000 miles. New water pump, timing belt and incidentals brings the price up to $1,200 for a running replacement engine. How much time will it take me to replace the engine? I work a little slow so I figure 2 days of relaxing engine work to replace the engine. A transmission would be half this cost and the same time. So...the car has a trade-in value of $2,775 and retails for $5,725. I'm not a retail kind of guy so I'll use the trade-in value of $2,775. $2,775 - $1,200 - tires ($600) - 2 days labor (My wife says she isn't going to pay me) - transport costs ($200)= $775. If I can get this car for less than $775, I'll be golden! We bought the car for $700!I had never started the car before purchasing it and was quite nervous as to what we would hear upon starting the engine. I turned the key and it appeared to turn much slower than our V8 truck. But it did start with a lot of noise and a rough idle. I turned the engine off after that sinking feeling that you get as you first understand the situation is not in your favor. I checked the oil and the coolant. Both are normal and of normal levels. I remove the spark plugs and find 4 of the 5 in good condition but the #4 cylinder had mechanical damage. I perform a compression test on all cylinders and 1,2,3,5 are 140-145 psi. #4 cylinder was at 0 psi. I stuck a stiff wire down to the top of the piston and had my wife turn the engine over. The piston went down! Whew! It's not a broken rod! Now, what would cause damage to a spark plug, make lots of noise and leave no compression in the cylinder? An out of synch camshaft would damage valves in all cylinders would it not? A broken valve spring would drop a valve to be hit by the piston. A head of one of the valves broke off. A loose valve keeper would allow a valve to drop into the cylinder to be hit by the piston. Nothing I can think of says I don't need to remove the head. Perhaps I'll just start simple and remove the valve/camshaft cover first to look for something amiss.
Any suggestions?
Thank you
