Volvo timing belt tensioner

CardinalJ

Hi all,

Hoping you can help me out here.

Friend has a 3.5 year old volvo S60 which he got from a dealer in the south east around 6 months ago. Its second hand but with full service history from the dealer.

The timing belt tensioner (hope this makes sense) has sheared off. I understand this isn't something that needs to be replaced unless the timing belt is going changed (open to correction here), but it wasn't due to be changed for 30,000km or over two years.

Quote to replace it is almost 5k and that's if the sheared bolt can be removed from the engine block. The garage are offering a 20% discount and loaned him a car, which makes me think they feel the car/part was defective.

Anyone have any ideas here? We feel the garage are taking the p*ss. Is this a common problem with the S60?

Any help hugely appreciated. The car is off the road at the moment and causing huge problems.

Cheers.

commited

Ouch. Is it the D5? I assume there has been piston and valve contact?

I'd be contacting Volvo if it's got service history, totally unreasonable that a 3.5 year old car should fail like this. I would anticipate a large goodwill gesture from Volvo.

Satanta

How many kilometres has it done? I think the D5 auxiliary belt and tensioner needs done every 60k. I know my s80 is due one now at 120 and according to volvo it already had it done before as part of a recall. I must schedule this ASAP!

CardinalJ

Satanta wrote: »

How many kilometres has it done? I think the D5 auxiliary belt and tensioner needs done every 60k. I know my s80 is due one now at 120 and according to volvo it already had it done before as part of a recall. I must schedule this ASAP!

Tensioner is supposed to be done when the belt is done, but it wasn't due for 30,000km so it's clearly a part failure from my eyes.

Interesting you said as part of a recall, do you've any more information on that? Was the recall specific to timing belt or tensioner?

commited

Advice for the D5s is to do timing belt every 60,000 miles or 4 years, even though this isn't the "official" timings.

Volvo need to make a very large goodwill contribution here.

Satanta

I asked about the tensioner and auxiliary belts at a service earlier this year. It has full main dealer history and they were able to tell me it was done as part of a recall. Mine is 08 though so it would have been addressed by now. Even so, the auxiliary belts and tensioner have a different service interval than the main belt, which supposedly isn't due till 180k.

CardinalJ

Has anyone else heard of this happening to other cars or volvos?

pnjones

@cardinalj thanks for starting this thread - this is the link to the site with the details of what happened

isthisquality dot com