Boom goes radiator?

I had a catastrophic failure with a '90 960 Turbo radiator and thanks to Volvo's space saving design had to part with mega bucks (about $3K).

My symptoms were a serious loss of power and what became evident as slipping within the auto gearbox. The auto gearbox fluid radiator is located within the main water radiator and shares joint walls. A failure in any of the walls allows water and gearbox fluid to mix with disastrous consequences. My auto gearbox was totaled and due to the corrosive nature of auto fluid on rubber, every engine hose had to be replaced.

Mine did not leak out through the core which I was informed was unusual because the pressures generated with auto trans fluid mixed with water and circulated around the engine often blows out all over the place.

My engine did not knock but was under severe strain when run . If the vehicle you saw was an auto and the radiator failure has taken the auto gearbox with it, then I suspect that the knocking was indicative of even more damage and I suspect that the vehicle is an uneconomical repair.

If the Auto radiator was not involved then she may have suffered another failure which was my displeasure to endure. I had a straightforward head gasket failure which although cost mega-bucks did almost no damage. My wife was driving and saw the temp gauge climb into the red and stopped in a cloud of steam. Often people fail to spot the gauge and one result I saw was totaled 850 turbo engine.

The order in which things went wrong for the car you saw is unknown but I would bet that the repair costs are going to pose serious questions as to whether to proceed.

(A) It is very unlikely that over filling could have caused the problem. If the system becomes over pressured there is a blow off hole in the cap on the filler reservoir which would have let the excess out. It is more likely that filling up was mentioned because too much had vanished. (B) A slowly leaking radiator which mixes with auto gearbox fluid can cause all the symptoms. (C) If the engine was "cooked" then the head is probably warped but the knocking is indicative of more serious engine damage.

I doubt that you or anyone will ever see that vehicle on the road again. I traded my '90 960 Turbo a year ago for about $3.5K (UK) at which price big repairs fell into the domain of owner do it yourself work only. Maybe Volvos are worth more in the USA but an '89 would not be worth a new or refurbed auto gearbox over here.

BTW I did buy another Volvo (V70 T5) but also bought the best 4 year after market warranty that was available.

Liam

Some nice person has overheated her car and stuffed the head gasket. The garage that did the service should do the repairs for free and give her some compensation for the inconvenience she has suffered.

Cheers, Peter.

Those plastic radiators are notorious for blowing up, she probably kept driving it until it severely overheated and warped the head, motor is probably shot if it got hot enough that it was knocking.

Why? What did the garage do? The driver should have been paying attention to the temperature guage and shut it down when it started to overheat.