We purchased an 01Volvo V70 2.4T a couple months ago. It has 100k miles on it. My concern is all four interior door panels have a serious amount of give to them. I can just push the leather (not the hard plastic) part of any of those door panels and they move. I swear it would almost seem like they were all removed at some point for some reason, and not replaced properly. The passenger side rear panel even has some gapping and I can see it’s broken away from the bottom and top of the hard plastic part of the door panel. I’m wondering if this is what makes the inside of the car sound unbearably loud at times, depending on who’s loud exhaust I’m parked next to on the road. We were parked next to a city dump truck one day and I thought my ears were going to bleed- the vibration noise in my vehicle was awful!
Could this be related? What on Earth could cause the door panels to do this, and is it easily repairable?
It’s probably what you suspect - someone took the panels off and screwed them up. Whether its easy to fix or not depends on what the problem is. If they were just lazy and didn’t bother screwing the panels back down, then all you have to do is find screws that will fit. If on the other hand they stripped the screw holes or broke mounting tabs, you might end up having to find replacement panels at a junkyard.
I Don’t Know About The Noise. I Suppose Loose Panels Wouldn’t Help With Keeping Noise Out, But Volvo Knew About The Door Trim Panels Becoming Loose.
While these cars were under warranty they had a procedure for removing the panels, using a slow-setting hot-glue-gun adhesive, using clamps, and sticking them back together.
Volvo has instructions for their technicians to fix your panels, but I’d say you would have to pay for it now.
CSA
Its possible the last owner had a fancy aftermarket stereo system, that was removed and the factory unit put back in before it was sold, so know the plastic door fastiners are worn out. A body shop should be able to remove and re-hang the door panal with new plastic fastiners.