Hi there I am a long time BMW owner and self repairer (520i 1984)
I am looking at buying a 1996 Volvo 850 wagon, which I like, but I am worried about a couple of things. First of all it has done 275,000 kms (170,000 miles) and the owner is a bit clueless about maintenance, and has a 17 year old son who has been driving it. Therefore it is a bit clapped out looking. He says it needs to be topped up with oil between services, but it doesn't seem to blow smoke at idle. Second, when you open the driver's door, it CLACKs loudly, twice. On closer inspection, the hinges are fine, but the centre connection, the one with the yellow metal section coming from the door with a detent which controls where the door stops when fully open... where that connects to the car body it has broken a small section of the body away with itself. Like an extra half an inch around the hole on all sides. There is a little rust around it and a bit of a tear running down the body. Most of this is under the rubber boot. When you wiggle the door in the fully open position it all moves about 5mm (quarter inch)
Am I being paranoid or is this a massive PITA to fix? Alas I never learned to weld and I don't think this would be a good project to learn on. And that rust, difficult to get rid of ???