Hello, Thank you in advance for having a look and any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


I've only seen these pictures. I have not had a chance to look behind the wheel or under the 850 at all. Have a look at the front wheel. Does that look a little off to anyone else?


Do any of you experts know by looking what might be broken or terribly bent here?


Also, does the passenger side strut tower look like it's bent? (last pic, under the hood)


Can someone recommend the best repair manual to buy, Haynes Index??


I need to get this moved to my house in the next 3 days. It does run good. I was just checking to see if it's something common... that I can pick up and swap out, and be able to drive?


Or do I need to call a wrecker?


Thanks again,


Regards,
Kevin

 

No offence but why would you get involved with a wrecked car if you don't know how to fix it? A Haynes shop manual is not going to tell you how to fix a wrecked car.

 

I will know how to fix it when I get it home and have a chance to look at it properly. I'm not an idiot. Appreciate your oh so wise words.


I am excited about the car. I really like it.


And I was hoping to ask seasoned Volvo owners of their respected opinions. Regarding my question about a manual, isn't that obvious? I thought I might be welcomed to the forum as a 'new to me' Volvo owner,....


Instead, I am harassed by a jacka$$..


Cheers anyway

 

Sorry but in your your initial post you sounded like you were in over your head. Good luck with your project.

 

I wouldn't bother with a Haynes. All its good for is torque specs and check engine codes :-). You can find all the same info online via the boards, via Volvotips, via Youtube vids and I like to use volvopartswarehouse.com when I want to see diagrams and get part numbers. Getting back to the car: It is not driveable as is. It either has a bent strut and or bent control arm or both. Here's what I'd look at: 1) is the inner fender straight? (no paint cracks etc?). If its bent you'll need a professional body shop frame straightening - even then it may never be right. 2) is the subframe that the control arm bolts up to ok? If not you have a major job to replace/repair. 3) How bad is the A pillar damaged (ie what the front door bolts up to)? Again a body shop bender can make better but if that's off, even a replacement front door will never seal up correctly.

There's a pretty good market for selling used parts if you decide to part out the car. I could use a new hood and a SW rear bumper in that regent red color...

 

Hello kplords it's the jacka$$ here again. I'm not a seasoned Volvo owner but I have dealt with a few unibody wrecks before. I've looked at those pictures again and with the lean of the passenger side wheel and the fitment of the door it's obvious that that you have a pretty hard hit below that A pillar. I know I'm just the jacka$$ but if I was you I would have that car taken straight to a body shop with a good frame rack guy.

 

Thanks much mt6127 for all of the great tips and your time. Diagrams and part numbers is what I am most interested in at this point. I am looking forward to browsing volvopartswarehouse.com for diagrams as my searches for them earlier today were not very fruitful.


thx again,
cheers!

 

Have it towed. $50 - $70 is a small price to pay to get a car moved to where you want it. I really would not bother with a car wrecked like that unless you got it for less than $300 and needed parts off of it. You can get those cars in straight running condition for $600.

 

So, I put the donut spare on it and drove it home with no problems. No rubbing. It was great. A slow, but fun drive home. I'm liking my first Volvo very much already.


Yes, so , the strut was bent pretty bad. See pic. Bottom door hinge bent a bit. Straightened it out and the door seals great. Well, it appears to seal great anyway. It will be a fun project although I'm not going to do too much to it. Nothing extreme, I just want to keep it driving and get a feel for Volvo.


Cheers! Thanks much!

 

Cool, so time for new struts (but you wanted to do them anyways right?). I had a similar experience on my daughter's 850 - the spring seat rusted allowing the spring to drop down 2 inches (Bilsteins no less! so much for the lifetime warranty) - tore up the tire. Threw on the donut - drow home no rubbing. Put on some new Boge's and bada bing, better than before - minus the tire...) Just don't forget to inspect all the other bits for bends and get an alignment done.

 

I am shocked that you were able to get the door to seal. How? That was some serious frame damage. I would not have bought that car personally.

 

For a manual, I like this:

https://www.volvoclub.org.uk/volvo_w...techdocs.shtml

 

How far did you drive it? This is the kind of **** you see in Africa, not in first world countries. Just as well you didn't pass any cops.

I find it hard to believe the A-pillar is undamaged. There's no way you got that door to seal properly. I hope they paid you to take this car away.