'89 240 DL Wiper Motor Follies (this is somewhat funny)
 

This is somewhat entertaining (if you have sick sense of humour like I do :D ).

First, the wiper motor made grinding noises. Then they wiper motor slowed down and made grinding noises. Then, the wiper motor speed for high and low speed became the same, and made grinding noises. Then the wiper motor ran really slow, with no grinding noises. Then the wipers just quit in the middle of the windscreen and the motor made absolutely no noises whatsoever. ;)

[sarcasm] Ya think it's time for a new wiper motor? [/sarcasm] (pardon the Linux joke)

At any rate, I can get a OEM replacement at our local car parts store here in North Carolina for about $90 and have it in the morning.

Here's the funny parts - Part 1: So, my wife and I get home and pull the car in the garage and my wife says, "you know, if that motor locked up, I'll bet that it's gotten really hot. I think we should check that."

So, I open the hood and put my hand on the motor and heard a distinct sizzling sound and the smell of burning skin and sudden pain, followed by the melodious accompaniment of me cursing up a blue streak involving a lot of quaint Anglo-Saxon anatomical and bodily function references that would make a sailor quit the Navy and join the Air Force. For safety's sake, I disconnected the plug to the wiper motor, just because.

Here's where the ordeal got really fun. It was raining in buckets, in the dark when the wiper motors packed in, of course. Have you ever been driving down the road in the dark, in the rain when you wipers failed and some jackass comes at you the other way with his high beams blazing away and you get totally blinded? Well, I have.

And to make it worse, you know that ugly habit people have of nailing you with their high beams as they approach you? Well, in the past month or so in our neck of the woods in North Carolina, they have developed a similarly ugly habit of riding two feet off your rear bumper with their high beams blazing away, which is equally blinding. But I have found a great deterrent for tail-gaters in this situation that is quite entertainment.

The Volvo 240's sold in Sweden have this neat little feature of 'rear fog lights' which are simply a second set of really bright red tail lights that can be illuminated with the flip of a switch to give notice to someone behind you that you are there should their be excessive fog an such. When, when a tail-gater is two feet off your bumper and you illuminate those lights, they back off really quick. I mean they instinctually slam on their brakes. Scares the crap of them. :)

my US model 1987 240- and 1992 740 both had rear fogs, but only on the driver side, the other side was not wired at all. also my 1990, 1993, and 1994 mercedes have these, too, same thing, driver side only, passenger side has neither bulb nor wiring.

I like to tap my brakes, better altogether!

my old 84 300D also had 'parking lights' that would light up the front and rear lights on either side.. way cool!
i saw many cars in germany parked with just one side lights on... i wish volvo did that..

(ps: sorry for the hijack Sleipnir)

yeah. all three of my benzes have those parking lights, too.

one thing the benz *doesn't* have that volvo has, is headlights that go off when you shut the car off. the headlight switch only has one power wire which is always on, so if you were to move that from circuit 30 to circuit 15, then you wouldn't have parking lights, either.