2003 VOLVO V40 1.9T
1.9L L4 PFI DOHC 16V
CARFAX 1-Owner vehicle
130,000 miles


On 07/30/2007, at ~105,000 miles, there was a Police Report reporting a front impact accident where the vehicle was towed.

I've checked out and driven the car. The engine and the whole front end look like new. The whole car is clean. The engine sounds good, has good acceleration, but here's the hitch: at highway speed, it has a vibration. Could just be the tires need to be balanced, or something similiarly inconsequential. Or, it could be something far more sinister resulting from the accident, which cannot be fixed [easily/cheaply]. If so, that is what I'm wondering, what it might be. The only mechanic I trust to look at this car can't check it out until until Tuesday, so I have to sit and wait, which is torture. I put $100 down which I made sure would be refunable, just so the car does not get swept away.

Any particular things I should look out for considering the front-impact accident, and the vibration at highway speeds? Anything else considering it is a pre-owned V40 with ~130,000 miles?

Thanks in advance!

[This is also posted in the V40 section, but I later realized may be more appropriately placed in this sub-forum. Sorry for the duplicate thread.]

 

I would stay away from a front-impacted vehicle.


JPN

 

This answer isn't Volvo specific, but based on too many years of knowing cars that have rear-ended someone else's car or truck. First, did the airbags deploy? They don't at lower speeds, or if the striking car submarines the bumper of the car/truck in front of it. If they have gone off, there has been a strong hit.

Second, if there was a strong hit, the subframes and steering columns in modern cars are meant to deform. And repairing them means removing the engine and transmission and drive axles in fwd cars. That's a whole lot of work. And maybe some less than perfect replacement.

Third, and I don't know if this applies in your state, but here if a car is repaired post crash to something like 85% of its value, you end up with a salvage title which immediately and irrevocably reduces any potential resale
value of the car.

Finally, at 140K, you are taking your chances. The owner gave up on it for probably very little money. Why? I suspect it wasn't the car it was pre-crash or why not just keep it until it died?

There are enough non-crashed cars out there for small money at 140K that this is a bad gamble. Vibration could be bad wheel balance, or bad bearing, or misaligned drive axle which you don't want to pay to have fixed.

 

Is there an sticker placed on airbags indicating when they were replaced, if they were replaced? If so I could find out if the impact was strong enough to deploy the airbags.

I bought the car, by the way, since it checked out fine with my mechanic. I mentioned to him it was in a front-impact accident, so he took special consideration of that. Looking especially at the frame, engine mounts, and whatnot, he told me the impact must have been mostly cosmetic, nothing serious.

So far it looks like the vibration is caused by badly bent wheels. Three of the four wheels have pretty good wallups in them. I have had them balanced perfectly by two different places, second place did so using road force balancing. No amount of balancing will get rid of these wallups, and moving the worst ones to the back only helped slightly. So, I'm actually replacing the wheels tomorrow and will find out then if that does it. If not, I'm not upset since I got the wheels at a great price. Elbrus I05's for $450 out the door. For cheap wheels, they actually look really good, were high-pressure casted, and come with 3 year finish warranty that covers corrosion. Other more expensive wheels I was considering were only regular cast and only came with a 1 year finish warranty.