Hello all,

I have an '89 740 Turbo wagon. I bought this car because the body was immaculate for the most part and the interior was in excellent shape other than a minor sunroof leak. Anyway, the cylinder head went bad and apparently was blowing exhaust gas into the coolant. When the mechanic had it tested at a machine shop they said the head was bad. Originally I was told it would be around $1100 - $1200 including a good used head. Now the mechanic tells me the heads from the cars he had sitting around are all bad and now he has to search far and wide for another head which he says may cost me $400 - $500, apparently driving my cost up into the $1400 - $1500 range possibly.

He was saying since the car has over 156k on it that it has high miles. I was thinking 156k is high miles for a Volvo - no way! He said in his experience turbos run too hot and that they have cylinder head problems all the time. When I told him I had a normally aspirated 240 with 280k on it he said you'd never get that out of a turbo engine. I'm sure I've read about other brickboarders with turbos that are well over 200k with no rebuilds. What gives? These guys do all imports but supposedly Volvos are their bread and butter and that they really know their stuff when it comes to working on them.

He also told me that it might be cheaper to put another engine in the car rather than put a head on my existing engine. First he tells me the labor is 10 hours (approx. $800) compared to the 7 hours labor to do the head. When I asked how much another engine would be he says $1200 - $1500 and he's not even talking reconditioned, he's talking used/un-rebuilt. That is WAY out of my price range. I don't make a whole lot of money and I'm only able to afford this repair because half the cost is being covered by my tax refund. I told the guy another engine was out of the question, but what is the brickboard experience with turbo engine longevity and this business of them running too hot and going through cylinder heads all the time? It would seem to me that eventually any head gasket is going to fail and quite possibly the head itself, but I can't imagine it happening that often. If you only had to do it every 150k that seems fine to me. What do you all say?

Thanks fellow Brickboarders
Matt Campbell '89 740 Turbo wagon