Timing belt broke! I suspect this may be the end of the road for our 2004 XC70!

[atbspinner]

I read your comment about being a very expensive lesson, but I disagree. You obviously took great pride in doing your own work, and by your description you took your time to triple check every detail. Although it seems to be the consensus on this site to change WP every other belt swap, it's not entirely unreasonable to replace when you did. Again, evidence that you cared about your car. No lesson here, other than random acts of nature suck, and these cars can sometimes attract these events in many different forms. I know i have had my share. At least you were able to look at the bright side. I am sorry for you my friend, just let the responsibility lie in the parts you replaced, not the workmanship or decisions made.

Good luck!

I agree 100% with this. You have done more than most owners.

[KB3MMX]

Just a case of bad luck, glad you repaired it. I think that's still going to be allot cheaper in the long run than getting another vehicle.

[XC70XC]

Can the problem be traced to the failure of the timing belt part? If it can, will the supplier be held responsible for it?
Sorry to hear about your unfortunate incident.

[Forkster]

We decided not to fix the engine. Instead my local mechanic is going to find a used engine from a wrecked car and replace it. It'll save me about $2,000, though is still going to be quite expensive. I won't get the chance to do any analysis on the ruined engine, so no updates on what caused the catastrophic failure unless in the process of removing the engine they come across the cause.

Thanks for all the help.

If you can, when your indy mech takes out the old engine, can you have him to a quick once-over on the components around the timing belt area? We're curious if there were other components that caused this issue. If not, no worries as I too would have done the same - cept I would of searched for an 6-Speed engine from a V70R and done a tranny swap. My indy shop has one waiting for me when I'm ready.

Now, if I had more thought, I would of taken my friends german MY04 XC70 D5 engine out and done a swap a couple years ago. He had it brought over from his work as a consulate for the Canadian government but got rear-ended by a drunk in a truck which wrote off his 50MPG diesel XC70.

[JimnyBobbins]

I heard that volvo guarantee genuine belts for 90k miles and if they snap they foot the bill. Only something I heard and dont know if it is true though.

[shuv70]

I agree 100% with this. You have done more than most owners.

2nd that. I did my T belt around 90k, so far so good.

Think about all the $ you saved by doing stuff yourself, other than going directly to dealer, can easily add up to the 5k engine replacement, plus, the "fun" of doing it, how you can beat that by $, and look at the garage, for all the cool tools we have

[v70+xc70]

Don't beat yourself up on this. Move forward with your plan.

[saynoto29ers]

Don't beat yourself up on this. Move forward with your plan.

+1

[fprintf]

So my plan was not to beat myself up too badly over this. Well, that plan was working until the old engine came out and they found that the waterpump had seized, and that is definitely what caused the failure. My advice to anyone changing a timing belt is don't be lazy and figure if it isn't leaking, it must be good to go!. Obviously in hindsight this was an expensive lesson, although on any other vehicle no one would ever know to change the water pump unless there was something wrong with it. Oh well.

BTW, the new engine supposedly has 81,000 miles vs. the car with 144,000 miles. The engine is much dirtier than the one it replaced, so I have to contend with what kind of conditions it was exposed to in its lifetime. The total bill for this debacle was $3,800! ($1,500 for the engine, some money for a new timing belt kit, coolant, oil etc., plus $1900 labor)

[Astro14]

So the water pump seized?

Was there any overheating or symptom of running hot prior to the belt failure?

If the engine is dirtier on the inside than the previous engine, avoid the temptation to use motor flushes or any chemical quick fix. A good quality synthetic oil, one that meets ACEA A3 or A5, will slowly clean up the engine - my personal favortie is Pennzoil Ultra 5W40, that cleaned up my XC over time - but it's as rare as hen's teeth, you'll have to get it direct from Pennzoil or order off Amazon. Mobil 1 EP 5W30 is widely available and should do well. I've heard that Red Line does well at cleaning (ester base), though I've not used it. If it's really dirty, then I would use the synthetic and shorten up the drain interval a bit, to say, 5,000 miles.

IF it's dirty on the outside...well, I wouldn't worry about that...