"ipd Shames All Other Volvo Parts Dealers"

 After a quick inventory of my wife’s 1999 S-80 T6 front suspension and brakes, I placed an order with the folks at ipd for rotors, pads, outer tie rod ends, lower control arms, ball joints, brake fluid and Motive Brake Power Bleeder. I was going to be busy next weekend rebuilding the front end of her car. UPS dropped off the package, I checked the packing slip versus the contents, pulled my new Motive Brake Power Bleeder out of its box, thumped it and nodded my approval. Things were Going to be okay.

I removed the wheels, calipers, rotors, spindle, lower control arm and knocked the old ball joint out of the spindle. No matter what I tried in my shade tree shop, I couldn’t get the new ball joints to press home straight so I dropped them off at a local Volvo shop so they could use the appropriate press dies. Got those back an hour later and put everything back together, cleaning and applying loctite as I worked my way back out. Dropped the car back down on the tires and something wasn’t right. I tried adjusting the tierods to get it close for a tow to Turner Volvo in Sacramento for an alignment but ran out of time when the tow truck showed up.

A couple hours later, the dealership calls and says, “You’ve got the wrong lower control arms on the car. We can fix it but it will be ‘insert large dollar amount here'". I look over at my wife and say a couple choice shade tree mechanic words. Things are not okay. All the hard work and dirty hands just went down the drain. When I told the dealership where the parts came from, I heard from a couple of the employees that ipd is a great company and they’ll take care of you.

I called ipd first thing the next morning, got patched over to Robert “Lucky” Arnold, who confirmed that I had placed an order for S80 control arms, that was what they shipped and if there was a mistake on ipd’s part, don’t worry about it, you’re covered. I sent him a couple of pictures of the old/new control arms and the VIN via email. Things were going to be okay.

Turns out another similar but not same Volvo model control arms were bagged and mislabeled by the manufacturer. ipd tracked down the correct set of control arms and had them sitting at the dealership the next day for installation at the dealership, for which they covered labor costs completely.

The moral of the story: Give the folks at ipd a call and order some new suspension parts because your Volvo never feels so good to drive as when you’ve got new rubber between you and the road. And, if by pure dumb luck, you get the wrong part that still bolts in your car, ipd will take care of you. You can’t beat that level of customer service.