2005 V70 R 130k miles pre-purchase

[jefe06]

Hello All. I've perused the forums and have gotten a lot of great information, but I wanted a specific question regarding a V70 R I am looking at purchasing. I know the one in particular I am looking at does need a little work, but I wanted ask a specific question regarding it. Apparently this car is only FWD, I know all the V70 Rs are AWD and I am assuming (havent seen the car yet) that the propeller (drive shaft) has been removed. Now I know this could have been done for several different reasons, like the shaft was going bad and was causing vibrations while driving, the angle gear could have gone bad, or that the it is the bevel gear assembly. If the over car looks good and assuming I can get a good price for it, I will take it to a volvo mechanic to get a once over.

Is there anyway for me to tell which one of these it could be just by inspecting it? I have decent mechanic skills and may perform the repairs myself, but if it involves removing anything in the transmission, I am not going to touch the car.

Also are there any good pre-purchase inspection checklists available? Thanks for the help and I hope to join you aficionados one day.

[oragex]

At some point I was reading a few topics about running these only on AWD after removing the drive shaft. While there was no consensus about this being safe or not, a few raised concerns about the transmission working without the drive shaft. No one is a Volvo engineer here for sure, but I won't take the risk. Already, a 130K R is a massive gambling, and a sure big bill of repairs ahead.

[jonesg]

LOts of us run the V70 as FWD only, no problem.

[oragex]

LOts of us run the V70 as FWD only, no problem.

Do you mean, you run your AWD without the propeller shaft? Have you been driving it like this for long time?

[jonesg]

I don't know if it has a prop shaft or not.
Bought it like this. It doesn't feel like it has functioning AWD when on snow.