I'm a 244 guy myself, but I felt that it might be worth bringing up some problems my mom has been having with her 2000 S40.

Yesterday my mom was coming home from work and had some problems with her brakes--they didn't work. This is the second time it has happened, so she stopped at the local Volvo mechanics' shop on the way home to see what they could figure out.

They looked over the car and said that the master brake cylinder was going bad. However, they weren't exactly sure how to tackle the problem since they haven't had to repair or replace one on a Volvo newer than 1995. My car, an '89, has had the master cylinder changed maybe twice. Thus, it seems a bit odd that a car two years old (we got it in 2001 new) would be having this major of a problem.

A year ago, a lady ran into my mom's parked S40 while my mom was inside at her work. The accident caused $10-$15K worth of damages and basically messed up the engine compartment on the S40 really badly, as the other lady's car was partially on top of my mom's car. However, insurance wouldn't total a year-old car, and so it was repaired. Unfortunately, used parts were put in instead of new ones because the model was more than a year old.

We discovered fairly recently that the dealer that repaired the car (same one we got it from) did a horrible job. Paint overspray was everywhere, the battery was just sitting in the engine compartment unbolted (!), and the engine had a higher than normal rev at idle, among other things. My mom has been seriously looking into getting a new car, but we kind of need to deal with the whole master brake cylinder thing first.

The mechanics who checked the car out yesterday said that the failure of the master brake cylinder is (supposed to be) unrelated to the accident and subsequent (shoddy) repairs.

What do you guys think?