I have been looking at buying a 8yr old white volvo. It has some rust showing through, which I think is unusual for a volvo? Would this be a sign of poor repair accident damage?
Is it likely to get worse and costly to repair? Is it bad enough to avoid buying it?
top of rear window
David Wilson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Nothing major. I have an S70 of similar age and there is no rust on it. Those couple of spots are probably where a scratch has occured. Should have been touched up before it got like that. The main structure is well rustproofed when they are built, so I doubt that there's any structural rot. The roof rust looks like the product of a badly fitted replacement window - some fitters cut the old one out with a stanley knife and scrape the paint away beneath where the seal sits.
There are tidier examples around, so I suggest you walk away from that one.
-- Stuart
I use POR-15 on many of my vehicles that are rusting. It works well. A little hard to topcoat, but I guess that is to be expected.
Randy Mantle wrote
The question is: does POR-15 (expensive compared to other anti-rust/anti-corrosion protectants) work in 5, 10, 20, or even 30 years as claimed? "It works well", you wrote, but how would you know that? The pictures all look very pretty, but don't they almost always do after a coat of fresh paint? Also, the requisite meticulous pre-coating preparation is daunting to say the least.
Don't get me wrong. I'm all in favour of a good anti-rust protectant for my car, but I think POR-15, impressive though their claims are, may turn out to be another disappointment. POR-15 was introduced in ?1958. There is another product, more recent and claimed to be superior: it doesn't need scrupulously clean metal for this formulation of isocyanate to work, so less scrubbing away of the existing rust is necessary. It is called Rust Bullet.
Opinions will vary, but my view is that rust is *bad*, and for every bit you can see, you can bet there's a bunch of it that will be hidden. It gets under the paint and spreads like cancer and is virtually impossible to stop once it gets started. Unless the car is a classic you plan to extensively restore, the rust is clearly limited to a replaceable panel, or the car is dirt cheap and you just want a beater to drive until it rots apart I would definitely pass and look for a rust free car.
Or the car is relatively new and not a ford...
There's a couple of rust spots on my newer BX. But they're just that - spots. On older cars I've seem the 'spread like cancer' thing - but not on this one. Galvanising works :-)
cheers, clive
David Wilson (z) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
Big Volvo estate. White. Signs of hard life. Umm, can we take guesses at the previous owners? Any signs of bodywork around the roof centre and any signs of the dash being full of 'oles?
Police vehicles are properly serviced, but they have a helluva life. Regularly revved to valve popping extremes. Loaded to the gunnels, transmission - wheels and bearings get some stick. (And they've carried everything from sick drunks to body parts). DaveK.
Yes its an ex-police car. I was wondering with the three rust spots all being on same side that it might of had some kind of side impact damage and the poor repair is causing the rust?
Also it only has 102,000 miles but more than and 3 owners including the police. This mileage sounds too low to be genuine do you think, for the police to sell it with under 100k on clock?Even if it was some kind of trainer car?
I suppose accident damage incidents on a police car wont show up on a normal check like a civilian car would? If it had major repair work it wouldn't be logged?
Ok that's all the info you need, rust aside, I would highly advise you to *not* buy this car, by the time the police get rid of them they're usually quite well worn. Same advice goes for rental cars, people beat the living crap out of them, buying one is just asking for trouble.
David Wilson (z) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
AIUI, police cars tend to spend quite a lot of time in the body shop...
Yes. FAR too low. Several hundred thousand miles too low. Unless the police got shot of it for a good reason. Like it wasn't Volvo-shaped any more.
"Accident repair" isn't logged on normal cars, if you're thinking about HPI etc. Insurance claims are. Sometimes. The police, AIUI, self-insure, therefore no claims.
Depends on the which force. There was a scandal here in North Wales a few years back when it was claimed they were so hard up they stopped routine servicing of police cars, only fixing them when they broke.
now they have plenty of cameras to supplement income
Exactly! I was going to add that, but decided the thread was far enough off topic already...
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