Hey guys, Well im thinking of buying a 2001 s40 from a used dealership, The cars currently has 106 thousand miles on but there's a couple of issues. first off the steering goes to left when goin straight idk if it needs an alignment second the check engine light is on, we asked and he said that it was do to the catalytic converter but theres no loud exhasut noise, there asking for 3500. should i take the deal ?

 

Insist the dealer change the cat-converter and align the front-end...
Clear ck engine light as a condition of buying the car.
If not, walk.

 

Are there any maintenance records on the car? At 106kmi, the timing belt should have been replaced. Any possibility they'll let you take the car somewhere to have the front end checked? Or at least to Pep Boys, Advance Auto, etc to get the codes pulled?

 

They said it would be a 500 dollar job to get the cat fixed an they also said that you could run it like that because we have no emission laws where i live, ruff estimate on how much it would be to get it aligned at a shop? like pep boys or autozone, it got an oil change two thousand miles ago so im guessing they did maintain it

 

Your choice is really good that you are thinking to buy used s40 Volvo car. So I would like to suggest to go on internet because there are so many used car for sale sites are available on internet. You could be easily find best one car dealer site.

 

500 for "retail" cost of cat-converter.....they can do it (in-house) for less.

 

Make sure the timing belt has been changed! Volvo recommends the change at 105k miles on the early 2000-2004.5 models. $3500 is too much for a car needing work.

 

I recently bought a 2000 s40 from a used dealer and had the same issue. I asked the dealer if I could run a diagnostic on it and it turned out to be the gas cap. I didn't really understand until I found that a different gas cap will throw off the fuel tank pressure sensor and cause the check light to come on. May or may not be the case but I would ask the dealer to run a check and if they don't have the tools, then take it to auto zone or advance auto and get it done for free.