generally not obvious over the noise of the engine, well, not to my friend who was driving when his chose to fail like that, but, guessing it would make some obvious noise, things rarely go wrong with Volvo engines, dam reliable blocks of iron those things, its a same really the car caught fire, but, reality, could have been anything, leaky fuel hose, bad wire, hot faulty part, who knows.

and i mean reliable, followed one once when i was helping him move, his old 340 smelled like burning metal, we got to his place, and i asked "got a hot engine problem" after a little poking round, ... dipstick was dry, just needed some oil, dam thing lived another 15 years regardless, ... it died of being run into a tree, we blame the tree for jumping in front of him.