Volvo SI6 (B6324)

Volvo's transverse straight-six — the SI6 — in the XC90, S80, XC60 and the Land Rover Freelander 2.

⚑ A straight-six mounted TRANSVERSELY is the whole engineering story. To make it fit, Volvo moved the ancillaries: there is no belt on the front of the engine at all — the alternator, water pump and air-conditioning compressor are driven from the rear, off the camshaft chain drive, inside the engine.

So a failed ancillary is not the job it is on any other engine. Replacing the alternator means going in from the gearbox side, and a job quoted from a conventional layout will be wrong by a large multiple. This is the single most useful thing to know before agreeing a price.

It is chain-driven with no belt to schedule, which is a genuine advantage, and the chain itself is not a common failure.

In the Freelander 2 it is the same engine under Land Rover badging, so Volvo material applies where Land Rover's is thin.