It has been a nice 8 years with our XC70, and I had started doing a lot of the maintenance myself. Last April (edit: it was actually October 2010) I did an entire service on it including changing the serpentine and timing belts at 125,000 miles, using instructions off this site. I was so pleased with myself for saving us several hundred dollars, even though it took me hours because I was double and triple checking everything including the torque of various bolts.

Well, today at 145,000 miles we had a failure of the replacement timing belt. I am not sure exactly what happened, because the car is currently sitting 60 miles away from home near where we were stranded on a late Sunday afternoon. It is at a Volvo dealer's lot, and I expect the worst - bent valves, mangled head, possibly piston damage etc. that will make us unwilling to fix the car. Peeking under the plastic timing belt cover showed a lot of rubber and a loose belt. So it might be a snapped belt, but it might also be that the tensioner let go.

Funny thing, we were offered $5,000 for the car a few weeks ago, and we decided to wait until our long summer trip was over before seeing if we could get closer to book value. Now I am in a very poor negotiating position with a dealer I am not familiar with. At the very least, even if I decided to do some kind of engine transplant myself, finding a donor engine and finding the time to do the replacement isn't going to happen and transporting the car that 60 miles could get expensive.

The good news is that we weren't on our road trip, 750 miles from home, when it happened. And when it went, it was at a traffic light near a gas station and not on the highway. Oh and the temperature had dropped from 95 to 88.