The starter on ours is weak too... I need to change that soon. Fairly easy access just below the intake manifold.scot850 wrote: ↑27 Aug 2019, 20:18 Cylinder head oil leaks from the rear which are hidden and drain into the starter motor frying it. Also front pulleys and tensioner coming loose and damaging the engine. Both jobs highlighted by a senior mechanic at Volvo dealer I know. When he told me about this, he had just found a way to repair the latter issue without removing the engine, but reckoned it was probably easier to remove the engine to do the repair.
Neil.
The idlers and tensioner commonly fail, but the idlers (two) are the most common failure that can cause serious damage. If they seize, they will rip the mounting stud right off of the timing cover, rendering is useless. $350 part. Not the end of the world, but of course it's not something that you would want to deal with. From what I hear, the timing cover re-seal isn't a hard job, and certainly isn't engine-out.
Changing the pulleys is easy... took me 30 minutes to replace both idlers. They're a little expensive at $50 a piece, but it's cheap insurance compared to $600 in parts just for the timing cover and all the gaskets you'll need.
The tensioner itself doesn't cause the same catastrophic failure, fortunately... but it'll whine just as bad. I need to change that too...






