Brought my wife 95 940 turbo in for brakes in and they noticed that there was oil leaking from the main, rear and turbo seals so I went ahead and had them replaced. Since getting it back it has been back eight times because it has caused almost every part of the cooling system to fail. First the radiator cracked at the weld around the top hose, then the radiator cap craked, then it blew a radiator hose, then it blew another hose, Then they didn't know what failed and thought it was a warped head so the remachined the head. Now they are saying it is a heater core and the hose behind the firewall. Now when this happen each time the car overheats and blows all of the coolant I now have no clue what damage has been done to the engine or what could have caused this. The car has 100,000 miles on it and we drove it for a year without any problem. It did not have any cooling system problems before they replaced the seals. Of course the dealership can't explain anyof this and are leaning towards this being coincidental. I'm having a hard time with this being simply bad luck and tend to be leaning towards a compression issue or possible something more sinister. Any advice or help you can give me would be helpful.

I just got back from Australia where I was when this happened with the car. He told me that the heater core has now gone and had to be replaced. He wants me to split the cost of the repair because he feels that the heater core going was not related to the other things because the heat valve was closed. It is summer in Atlanta and you would nver turn the heat on. My argument is that with the leak in the head gasket being undetected for so long the increase in pressure could may haved caused the it fail and the fact that this car has over heated six or seven times now is what caused it. He even stated he has been with Volvo for over 12 years and has only seen one other heater core go. Do you think his point is correct or mine.

BTW thanks for the great advice so far, I really appreciate it.

Rich

Jesus... that is NOT acceptable. I'm usually forgiving towards some shops who don't find certain things the first time, since often it is very hard to do so given customers' budgets and time constraints (which are often voiced when the car is brought in for service).

In this case, however, there is obviously SOME problem that is causing your car to dump everything under the sun.

You--or they--need to ascertain the precise cause of the overheating.

That means asking some of the following questions:

DOES THE ENGINE FAN COME ON WHEN THE CAR IDLES, before the temp gauge goes past halfway? This is the first thing to look at.

Did they replace the thermostat with a new one?

Is the heater control valve functioning? Leaking?

Is there coolant in the cabin? Signs of leakage, wet floor, foggy windows?

Are ALL the hoses new?

Does the cooling system manifest excessive pressure or bubbles in the overflow container?

Is the Check Engine light illuminated (and does the light work properly)?

Is your wife watching the temp gauge to see where and how this is happening?

**********

The first things to look at, if they have already NOT been done, would be the thermostat, engine fan and relay system, and water pump. The thermostat and water pump should be replaced (given the symptoms) regardless--unless they are brand new. This is given the huge amount of money you've put into the problem already. A pump and thermostat are tiny compared with the rest of it.

The head resurfacing certainly didn't hurt a thing, and after a few overheats it very well might have helped you out. If the car overheated very badly at any point (to the point of stopping) you might have a cracked head or something like that. But that's not a very hard thing to ascertain, as you would likely see compression gas in either the crankcase or the cooling system.

Also, is the PCV system even remotely clean? Very important.

The 700/900 FAQ has enough information to keep you reading for hours. And it'll probably highlight more potential problem areas than I have. Any way you look at it, you should stop dumping money at replacement and get it diagnosed properly. Even if it means going to a different shop where they'll take the time to do the diagnostic work (and that sometimes means leaving it for a few days before they even know what's up, so the techs can drive it around and maybe even drive it home to duplicate actual driving conditions).

See where THAT gets you and then post back with the results. You should be able to have a problem like this resolved faster than all those dealer visits.
--
1992 940 wagon, very low miles
as well as others.

In addition to all that has been suggested, I would go ahead and change the pressure cap on the resevoir tank. If it isn't working properly it can cause too much pressure in the system. They are cheap $10 from RPR.

The cracked radiator is almost normal (they last about eight years), but they are incredibly susceptible to someone leaning on them while changing seals. I suspect that the tech inserted the thermostat backwards and did not bleed the cooling system correctly. This caused the system to overheat and possibly blow the headgasket. The rest of the problems followed.

Two lessons. First, it will be just about impossible to prove they caused all this unless you have some sort of smoking-gun evidence (e.g., you drove out of the shop and the car overheated within ten miles). And second, they are clearly complete idiots and you need to say goodbye to them ASAP.

100,000 miles and/or 7-8 years seems to be the point where many of the Volvo cooling system components start to die. I just replaced the rad, water pump, all hoses, heater control valve, thermostat, etc. in my wife's 95 945T, because the water pump failed, and the rad was leaking at the upper hose, and I figured while I had all the coolant out, I might as well do the rest. BTW, fcpgroton has the best deal on this kind of stuff.

If you are having overheating issues, be sure to replace the t-stat. It's cheap and easy, and I didn't see where that was mentioned as a possibility. I don't think anything sinister is going on here. I think many of your cooling system components were just getting close to the end of their service life.

keefus

did you order your radiator from FCP, did you get a Nissens?? I just put a 3 row all copper in my 240 but I dont believe that style will fit in vehicles w/ electric cooling fans.

Did your replacement radiator for your 940 have plastic tanks?? How was the quality?

Thanks,

Matt

--
'82 DL - 150k, '93 940 - 93k

Yes, I got my rad from fcpgroton. It was a plastic-tanked, OEM style, made by Nissens, and appeared to be of outstanding quality. It fit perfectly, without any modifications. It cost $175 (maybe it was $190, not sure), versus $305 from IPD, and $447 from dealer.

In fact, I was trying to replace my wife's leaky rad on a Saturday before a long vacation road trip on Sunday. They shipped me 2 upper rad hoses instead of an upper and lower. I discovered this on Thursday, my wife called at 4:55 pm, and the super folks at fcp were able to overnight the right hose using a different overnight shipper, so I was able to replace everything i needed to on Saturday morning. A great big thumbs up for the fcpgroton folks!

I must agree, Nick @ FCP groton has really been great to work with. My rad is starting to drip ever so slightly, ~10 years old so it probably time, What type of coolant are you running in your new rad.

Matt
--
'82 DL - 150k, '93 940 - 93k