I forgot to mention, don't touch the knock sensors unless you really have to.

Volvo's first intro to the aluminum block was a disaster. The V6, god awful, and the straight 6 wasn't much better. Who knew that the wrong kind of antifreeze would lead to pin holes through the metal?? Plus, the cooling systems were not up to par.

I agree with the liquid gasket junk, why? It just leads to complexity that isn't needed.

The cam journals, bearings, are quite good until the engine over heats and warps the cover. Then a new head is required - a guy in New Zealand found out the hard way.

But, when you take the head off a 5 cyl, you will realize that the machined grooves in the cylinder liners are still there! The crank bearings only begin to wear if the oil pressure gets too low. Very few ring failures have been brought to our attention.

The heads also do not tend to warp even after 200K miles. Head gasket failures are more common than I would like, but I also attribute that to incorrect use of cheap antifreeze and a lot of 'cold' running with regular gas.

I also like the very old Volvos, pre fuel injection. They require more maintenance than the new engines, most shops don't even know what a carburator is much less what it does. Timeing??? A choke? Only 4 fuses?
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Keeping it running is better than buying new