I thought the drivers side front door on our wagon was simply out of adjustment so took it in to fix it. Seems the problem is bigger than I knew. On the door at the hinges, the bottom hinge, right below that hinge, maybe about an 1/8 of an inch below the bottom of the hinge, is about a 1” crack, a split. It's hard to spot, but its there and you can see it.

I was informed that split will grow in time, if not dealt with. Dealing with it means either another door, which means finding a good used door and painting it, or, welding it from the inside. The mechanic said that’s the first place he looks when someone has an issue with the drivers side door, and sure enough-------.

The issue of painting it is we had the car painted a nice “custom” metallic grey a couple years ago, not a “typical” paint job, so if I want to match it I’d have to go back to the paint shop, probly at least a $200 job, plus the door itself and labor surrounding removing and replacing it, OR I can have the door removed, the panel removed, and have it welded on the inside with a piece of iron inside to make it strong. Total about $300.

So price wise, the choice is close. The Volvo shop I took it to said this is fairly common esp on the drivers side door as it's the one that gets used the most and gets leaned on quite a lot. They have seen many of these splits at about the same place as mine is. Of course we can just let it go ‘till it splits so bad, well, I’d hate to let it get that far.

Anyone else faced this issue? Just curious.