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Engine reliability: Volvo's OHV vs. OHC

For all of the talk that I hear about how bulletproof the oldies are, I have also heard a great deal about engine problems that seem to be the result of fundamental design flaws in the B18/B20 motors (e.g. 'soft' cams and other valvetrain-related issues). There are a lot of threads on this forum and elsewhere that address engine issues. Contrast this to the relatively few threads of same nature in the 200/700/900 forums.

My '85 240 wagon has 216,4000 miles on its original stock 2.3L B230F OHC motor, which has never required any attention outside of oil/coolant changes, valve adjustments and other scheduled maintenance. Never even had the head off. I've done absolutely nothing special with this car...it runs on cheap 10w30 "dino" oil and is regularly driven with a heavy foot. I've been under the impression that this kind of mileage is not possible between rebuilds with the old OHV motors...which (I'm told) can need expensive internal engine work at 75-100k mile intervals.

Of course, I don't have much personal experience with these cars, so I'm asking if this is true or if I've been mislead. Not trying to anger anyone or start a "mine is better than yours" kind of thing.

Just looking for some feedback... :-)

Thanks a bunch.
-=Bob=-






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New Engine reliability: Volvo's OHV vs. OHC
posted by  someone claiming to be Bob  on Thu Aug 1 18:27 CST 2002 >


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