[azzura]

I'm a long time lurker with occasional visits associated with my wife's previous V40s and now a V60 for the past 2 years. It's done around 14k miles in our ownership and mileage now stands at a bit below 115k.

It seems the cam belt decided to jump a few teeth when pulling away at a junction, changing from 1st to 2nd gear, then stalled and would not restart. Towed to local garage we have used for servicing our Volvos, they said cam and aux belts and tensioner all intact. They reset the belt and restarted but running badly. Head has been removed and they say that camshaft bearing surfaces in the head are damaged, but not the valves? Unfortunately I am working overseas for a few weeks so cannot inspect anything myself.

The same garage has previously serviced the car, including cam belt change shortly after our purchase (so perhaps 10k miles ago) when IIRC water pump and tensioner was changed, but only one aux belt, not the other (garage said it was OK). However several months later the "other" belt started to disintegrate, so it was replaced.

For this current problem the garage commented on "debris" in the belt area so it's possible that the previous aux belt failure left behind some crap which then led to the cam belt jumping...and I'm relying on my memory of what the garage told me, but it's making me think that they might not have done such a good job previously. However, before that they have replaced the clutch and DMF when the clutch burnt out not long after we bought it, and otherwise the car (and work the garage has done) has been fine.

The D5204T2 (2.0 litre, 163hp) diesel engine seems to be rather rare compared the 2.4 version, and prices for used cylinder heads are pretty steep (£1500-£2000 to you sir!) and since it's conceivable that any of the pistons/rods/crank might have taken a knock even if they look OK, I'm wondering if a replacement engine might be a better option.

Advice/opinions are being sought from this venerable forum, including a source for a replacement engine...