Opinion wanted on rust on car - link to pics included

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?
http://www.dwwilson.zoomshare.com/1.shtml/rust

 

I forgot to add the 3 photos are :-
bottom of passanger door
passanger rear arch
top of rear window

 

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.

 

The only Volvo I've owned with that much rust was a 15 year old 740 with
100,000 miles on it when I bought it it for £200. It didn't have much more
after another 200,000 abusive miles. But White really shows up.

 

Worse case I've ever seen! This rust has leaked out from the chassis ,which
is complety riddled with the stuff, it's like when you get shot or stabbed
in the stomach, blood will come up your throat and leak out your mouth.

 

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.
http://por15store.com

 

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?

 

Big Volvo estate.

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.

 

They are unnattended stone chips, see this link, you could repair them
yourself

http://www.samarins.com/maintenance/bodymain.html

 

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...