Hey, I am a huge fan of the 240's. I worked hard the last summer of 2010 to earn enough money to finally buy my own 240. I searched on Craigslist for a few weeks 'til I was finally able to come across one that struck me. It was a 1982 Volvo 245 and the guy was asking $500 to $650 dollars. The only problem was that it was in Wisconsin and I'm in Michigan. So after a few calls about the car I finally made the trip over to Wisconsin and was able to view the car in person. When I got there the outside of the car was mainly still intact - Lots of rust underneath the car but I still wasn't deterred from buying it despite all the rust.

The following is a list of the pros and cons of how the car was, as I saw it, before I had even purchased it back in August 2010.

Cons:

1) It had a crappy after market radio and a missing front speaker too, both didn't work.
2) Front forward antenna had been ripped off
3) The driver's seat was a passenger seat with the tilt **** broken off
4) Rear wiper was disabled as was the spray nozzel gone
5) There was a lot of dirt and fur on the interior
6) The gear shift had been pulled a part
7) The overdrive had been rewired then how it was designed to be
8) There had been holes cut in the back leather/vinyl siding to add 2 more speakers that were later stolen
9) The 2 front seats were brown where the remaining interior was tan
10) It needed a new battery after having sat for a while
11) Lots of scary rust underneath
12) Tires were almost completely bald
13) Overdrive fuse would blow if engaged and disengaged too many times due to how the previous owner rewired it
14) The temperature gauge would stay in the cold and not budge
15) It was a smoker's car
16) Two of the rear lights didn't work
17) Wouldn't start and stalled half the time during the test drive
18) The engine wiring was showing it's biodegradable feature
19) Tailgate wiring harness had fatigued at both hinges
20) And finally - Front passenger door didn't lock or unlock from outside
21) If hard braking was done the car would pull to the right because I discovered that the left rear caliper had seized
22) And the brakes were soft due to air in the lines
23) The fuel pump relay was bad
24) The clamps for the positive and negative posts had split


Pros:

1) It was my 6th car but the first car I was able to buy myself
2) It was a Volvo 245 Estate
3) It was a "diamond in the rough"
4) It was a Volvo 240, so it had all the safety features one could ever hope to get out of the worlds safest car without having to pay more
5) It's a classic
6) The gauges all worked
7) Almost all the exterior lights worked except for two in the back
8) Dash lights were/are a nice green color
9 - 11) It was the 4 speed manual with electronic overdrive - The M46 transmission and therefore was/is amazing on gas consumption and it still shifts effortlessly
12) Had 189,694 original miles on it
13) The engine and it's fluids had been maintained and had fluids changed regularly and so it still runs like a top
14) Had/has the low powered B21F engine that sipped gas
15) The car was quiet
16) Despite it's problems, it was going to become a beautiful car.

I told him the best I could do was $450 dollars, because of the battery issue. He agreed to the deal and I got a new car. I took the battery to get charged just enough to start the car, it boiled over and exploded. The last $50 went for the new battery. I bought gas for both cars and we went home.

Can anyone tell me how I can directly hook up some heated seats without having to use the old automatic temperature gauge used in the old 240s(the early ones didn't use a toggle switch I think)? I'd just like to hook them up to some direct current and be able to turn mine on and off with the flip of a switch like the later 240s. This car came straight from the factory without heated seats and air conditioning either. So there would be no existing wires to hook the seats to - Which is why I was asking if I could some how jankly tap in and hook up the seats to some sort of (direct)power source and a switch that I could put in the console too?

I find it very interesting and fun that the original purchaser in 1982 opted out for air conditioning, which left me with a few more blank spaces in the console to have fun with. It's fun to tell other people my age that it doesn't have air conditioning, and then when they ask why not get it fixed, I get to tell them it came from the factory that way - without air conditioning and watch their expressions.

 

Wait wait wait, did the engine explode or the battery?

 

Pics???

 

No! Oh my god no! The battery exploded, that's funy though. The battery was at autozone, I left it there, went to replace the clamps that had split came back like a 30 to 45 minutes to get it back to the car and the employee said it had boiled over/exploded. He even offered to show it to me, which actually looked pretty cool cause it was almost completely covered in a white base powder. I bought a new battery for about $56 dollars with tax and was on my way. It was the cheapest battery they had, but it was a working battery nonetheless, and it got me back from Wisconsin through Illinois, Indiana, back to Michigan, I parked it in the driveway, walked in the house and went straight to bed. What had turned from a planned 12 hour deal including driving and visiting the guy - going there and coming back, turned into a 21 to 23 hour deal.

 

you sound like another happy volvo owner, welcome! DL is the base model! and it does sound like it's on its way to being a beautiful car.

 

I thought I read some where that way back when that for a little while the LE was offered and was even lower than the DL?

 

There you go, I've just added some pics of the car to my album if you'd like to have a look-see