Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what?

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Tue 14 Mar 2017 18:55
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - James Banks

. Reading the HJ Telegraph columns for many years I have noted your advice re early cambelt, water pump, tensioner change. After exchanging emails with you last year I agreed that the 10 year/100,000 mile recommended for this engines cambelt was optimistic so took your advice and at 70,000 miles/7 years I had them all changed. The car has run perfectly until last week when with virtually no warning it failed. I heard a slight ticking noise and less than 20 seconds later it cut out completely.

It was recovered to my local independent Volvo garage who found that the auxillary drive belt pulley had failed. This had thrown off the auxillary belt which had then fouled the main cambelt with the resultant major engine damage.

I was surprised at how little noise it made, I would have expected a few loud bangs at the very least.

I do have a Warranty Direct policy so will hopefully be able to recover a fair part of the expense.

Have I just been unlucky?

Jim

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Tue 14 Mar 2017 19:16
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - pd

Is this the 2.0 4-cylinder or 2.0 5-cylinder. If the former then the cambelt change interval is actually 140k miles or 150k when fitted in some other cars.

If this is the 5-cylinder Volvo did have a lot of issues with the aux belt tensioner on both 2.4 and 2.0 engines and went through several designs and recalls.

Are you 100% sure the auxillary belt tensioner was replaced when the cambelt was done? It is actually usually these which fail - the cambelts themselves hardly ever go.

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Tue 14 Mar 2017 22:12
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - James Banks

2.0 litre 4 pot engine, belt tensionercambelt and water pump was changed just over 12 months ago.

Edited by James Banks on 14/03/2017 at 22:13

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Wed 15 Mar 2017 14:00
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - pd

That is very unusual on the 4-pot (which is actually a PSA engine). The aux belts and cambelts are usually reliable on them.

According to Volvo's shedule a 2.0 4-pot doesn't need a cambelt or an aux belt until 10 years or 150,000 miles (this is the same as PSA say for the same engine).

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Wed 15 Mar 2017 15:11
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - James Banks

Just my misfortune then, all the documentation I had read including for the Ford vehicles with this engine state 10 years or 100,000 miles, unless that has been updated. 150,000 does seem to be pushing it a bit.

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Wed 15 Mar 2017 16:31
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - SLO76
You were right to change both belts at 7yrs despite the 10yr recommended interval. There's no way I'd trust a rubber belt to last ten years.

I'm wondering if the auxiliary Belt was overtightened when fitted and damaged the pulley. It's certainly not a common failure on this engine so I'd get another garage to see if there's any sign of it, though it's probably not possible to verify.
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Thu 16 Mar 2017 12:41
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - pd

Just my misfortune then, all the documentation I had read including for the Ford vehicles with this engine state 10 years or 100,000 miles, unless that has been updated. 150,000 does seem to be pushing it a bit.

I've got a 2010 model year service sheet in front of me and it is definately 150,000 miles. Peugeot and Citroen say the same for the same engine in the C5, 407, 508 etc.

Aux belt failue on these doesn't normally do the cambelt either - it does on the 5-cylinder Volvo engines.

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Thu 16 Mar 2017 22:17
Volvo V50D 2.00 auto 59 plate 84,000 miles - Unlucky or what? - John F

Yet another sad story of undue caution followed by disaster. Why on earth anyone would think the manufacturer's time and distance recommendation was unduly risky beats me. Even if 0.5% failed beforehand their name would be mud.

If it works, don't mend it!

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