I have owned several D24s, and they last forever if well maintained,
but are not bulletproof by any means. I have never seen one have head
problems unless they were severely overheated, but they have tons of
small coolant hoses which can burst easily when old. I replaced mine
with brass elbows and straight sections of standard size coolant
hose, instead of paying the $500 to Volvo for all new hoses. I still
managed to blow the oil to water oil-cooler and overheat the motor,
and I am going to install a new head soon on mine. I think this is
the case with any engine using an aluminum head on an iron block, but
most engines have much less coolant hoses....
The rings seem to wear out before 100k miles if you use non-synthetic
oil of the factory recommended viscosity, but people who run 5w30
Mobil 1 seem to have virtually no ring wear after several hundred
thousand miles. I do not understand why this is, but do not ever use
non-synthetic in one of these.
There are a lot of myths out there about how awful the D24 diesel is,
but most of them are only true when compared to the longevity and
bulletproofness of the Volvo red block gasoline engines. There are
many people who have driven them over a million miles without
rebuilds on non-synthetic oil. The D24T is smooth, powerful, low
maintenance, and will get over 30mpg when tuned properly with a
manual transmission.
Tyler Backman
On Nov 25, 2006, at 5:32 PM, Marshall Booth wrote:
Lots of problems with their 1st generation aluminum heads!! Many
failed
after 100-150kmi.
Marshall
