S90 1997 Oil mixed with water

[Roblaw57]

My dad bought this car in 1997 new for approx £28,000. He gave It to me before he died a few years back and it had 24,641 miles on the clock from new. It’s now got just over 55k and I’ve accidentally driven it with the water light on, (thinking it was the washer level low), and the expansion tank has spewed out creamy sludge everywhere. The oil cap is clean. I had the oil cooler replaced, flushed through, new thermostat, and it hasn’t fixed it as it’s still gurgling bad, with the expansion cap off. I saw an engine specialist who said, probably head gasket gone, needs skimming, long job etc, cost about a £1000 to fix it (hopefully). The car is still running fine (apart from the above problem), but obviously I need to do something about it, and was looking for some ideas, guidance from some professionals on this forum. Overall the car has scratches and chips, but for its age is pretty good. I have all the tax discs from 97 until it stopped, mot’s, service history etc. I know there’s only one other that I’ve seen in my area (Thanet) so they are becoming quite rare. My mechanic said put it on eBay for a £1000 and see if there’s any collectors willing to bid on it. I was offered £3000 a couple of years back but didn’t take it for sentimental reasons. Any constructive comments welcome

[360beast]

Stick a post in this section

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=14

As you will get a better answer than from the general section.

What can you buy for £1000 these days? Nothing but junk, you've got a proper car there with sentimental attachment so I think you should get it fixed.

The whiteblock is quite a complicated engine to do a headgasket on as I believe it requires special tools so I would see about getting it to an independent Volvo specialist myself. The whiteblock is quite common for headgaskets going in the 960 & S/V90 so it isn't the first and won't be the last by a long stretch.

[Roblaw57]

Thanks for your input. You’re right, there’s not much about to buy that’s any good, for the cost of the repair.

[TeamG]

If it was me, I’d keep it and pay whatever is needed to do a proper job at a good independent garage. And whatever else needs doing to keep it going for another couple of decades.

[XC90Mk1]

If you look online you will see that with that fault you won’t get anymore than £1,000 for it in its current condition. And frankly, whilst many on here (myself included) are enthusiasts (I would repair myself in my drive sending the head off for a skim at less than £100) you will be doing really rather well indeed to get anything like £1,000
In its current condition.

That said, it’s a fairly desirable model, and there is very little else that I can think of that it would be?).

If you have a trusted mechanic who can repair it for £1,000 then I really do not see any issue with getting north of £2,000 for it myself.

I would repair it and list at £3,250 and you may not have to take much less for it.

However… it will be a good reliable car once fixed so I would be tempted to run it another 20 years

[Roblaw57]

Thanks for your reply. I’m happy to keep it and run it for many years to come, which I think I’ll do now. Just wanted to see if the cost to repair it was reasonable and the option available to sell it, if need be was viable. Thks

[XC90Mk1]

Originally Posted by Roblaw57

Thanks for your reply. I’m happy to keep it and run it for many years to come, which I think I’ll do now. Just wanted to see if the cost to repair it was reasonable and the option available to sell it, if need be was viable. Thks

That sounds like a good plan to me. Given that you will struggle to get 1k for it and you are going to spend 1k to repair it you will sell it all day long effortlessly for £2,000 and in all liklyhood if you are willing to wait you could get a fair bit more.

[Roblaw57]

Thanks…I have another main car, the Volvo is my 2nd car at the moment, so I’m on no rush to sell it etc. I’ll try and get it fixed based on the kind comments I’ve had back!

[StanC]

For what it's worth, I needed the head gasket renewing on my 1996 960 whiteblock at 127,000 miles when an oil leak developed at the back end of the engine. Fortunately it was only an oil channel that leaked and there was no mixing of oil/coolant. This was in 2008 and I had the work done by the main dealer. When the old head was removed it needed significant skimming, but I went for a new head, which came complete with new valves. While the engine was stripped I went for a new water pump, thermostat, breather oil separator, breather hoses, inlet hoses, timing belt/tensioner, etc. The bill came to just under £3000, but fourteen years on, at 181,000 miles, everything is still sweet (touching wood as I write this!).

Stan.

[griston64]

Originally Posted by StanC

For what it's worth, I needed the head gasket renewing on my 1996 960 whiteblock at 127,000 miles when an oil leak developed at the back end of the engine. Fortunately it was only an oil channel that leaked and there was no mixing of oil/coolant. This was in 2008 and I had the work done by the main dealer. When the old head was removed it needed significant skimming, but I went for a new head, which came complete with new valves. While the engine was stripped I went for a new water pump, thermostat, breather oil separator, breather hoses, inlet hoses, timing belt/tensioner, etc. The bill came to just under £3000, but fourteen years on, at 181,000 miles, everything is still sweet (touching wood as I write this!).

Stan.

That works out at £17.85 per month over fourteen years. Assuming the car was paid for fourteen years ago that's pretty cheap motoring. I'm pretty certain most of my neighbours will have shelled out close to 50k over that same period to try and impress people they don't know in their Audi's and BMW's on PCP schemes