At this point, I feel that I have to make a public declaration of my hate, yes hate, for Volvos. I have had it, and the whole damn water pump mess has allowed me to focus on just what an unreliable pile of junk this Godd@mn car has been.

I finally got the bolts in the water pump, and had turned them by hand, or lightly by wrench. Was torqueing them down with the torque wrench, and finally feeling good about this when -- One of the fu@%ing bolts sheared off in the block! This is after spending 2 more hours trying to get the damn bolts to go in in today, and three hours yesterday.

In the 5 years that I have owned this over-rated swedish pile of $hit, it has had major failures of the fuel injection computer, the fuel injection computer (again), the main fuel pump, the lift pump, the heater control valve, the head gasket (before and unrelated to the heater control valve), the water pump (three times), the radiator, the speedometer (my daughter can not use it to take her driver's test for her license), and probably more. It has been constantly in a state of need of repair, and has kept my heart in my mouth every day that I have owned it. Will it make it where I am going, or won't it? Will it break down this week, or won't it.

Note that the foregoing list does not include the overheat incident from the failure of the heater control valve, the subsequent very shoddy and lousy repair job by Richard's Import Store in Gainesville, that left antifreeze leaking from somewhere in the head around the #3 spark plug hole, had the head machined way beyond Volvo's specifications, black silicone on the exhaust gaskets (!), and the car constantly loosing coolant, etc. It also does not include that I eventually changed the head and re-did the job right in January of this year. Nor the maintenance work on the front suspension, the routine oil changes every 5 weeks, etc. I hate this fucking car.

Sure, it seems to be quieter and smoother than many brand new cars, but at least with them you get some, perhaps imagined, sense that they are reliable and easy to repair (in all fairness to the Volvo, all the previous repairs have been pretty straight forward, if involved at times).

Of course, after I figure out how to get the remains of the bolt out of the block, I have to decide whether or not I think the water pump suffered any damage from the bolt breaking off. And, is the bolt hole cross threaded, is that what broke the bolt? And, if any of you wants to provide any consolation, before you do, consider: the pump is still on the car (have to feed my dogs lunch and walk them before I get back to car work), but judging from the length of the broken part of the bolt I have in my hand and comparing it with the thickness of the water pump, it broke off IN THE BLOCK. And, after all of this, including figuring out how to drill the broken bolt out of the block, I still have to put the pump back in. Now that I jump in terror and get all twitchy at the mere thought of working on the goddamn water pump in a volvo. What will I break the next time due to Volvo's wonderful design of their utterly unreliable water pumps. Fucking fun!

When I get this crap pile put back together, it is going up for sale, and I swear that I will never, NEVER own another Volvo again.
--
Scott Cook - 1991 745T, 1986 Toyota Tercel (Don't laugh, it is reliable, faithful AND gets 41 mpg!)