I just purchased a 1993 Volvo 240 wagon with 126K miles, immediately to it to a mechanic and it got a clean bill of health.

BUT... I've just noticed in the last few days the engine shudders when the car is on and when I'm in drive. It doesn't shudder when I give the engine gas, only when idle. It doesn't die either, it's just irritating and it's happening more often each time I drive it. I don't have an rpm meter on my dashboard so I can't tell you about that.

I plan on taking it back ot the mechnanic Monday, but I'd love some advice before then. I'm taking the wagon on a cross country trip in three weeks so I've got to narrow down the problem soon.

Thanks!!

A cheap and easy try would be to replace the distributor cap and rotor. Sometimes hairline carbon(?) tracks get formed between the connections on the cap. This causes the engine to run rough at idle, since weak signals are being sent to the spark plugs at the wrong times. Once up to road speed, it seems that these carbon scoring tracks are "canceled out" by the speed of the rotor and the car runs fine.

For some reason, this was such a common occurance on an '88 240 my dad owned that he actually kept a spare cap in the trunk.

Maybe this won't fix your problem, but it's under $20, will take 5 minutes to change, and a new cap and rotor never hurts!