I came across a 91 240 wagon in the local junkyard today while searching fir Mercedes parts. It is blue with a manny tranny and they just got it. Original owner donated it. It has some rust on right quarter and right rear door. Otherwise it runs but has a bad fuel leak. Apparently this is why they donated it. I started it up and found fuel leaking in rear and dripping over exhaust pipe. Anyone know where this leak is coming from? The guy will sell this car for $500. I've always been enamored with this particular model because of it's legendary reliability. What do you all think? Is this worth it? Is there anything else I look out for on this car before buying it?

 

You have to look at the cosmetics of these cars; the driveline is great and easy to keep running forever but trim and things like door panels, pockets, cracked dashes, bumper trim, etc. is what you have to look out for if you care to make it a nice car. In this case I'd be careful with the rust--it sounds like it might have been worked at one time and badly repaired so it rusted in one area. A bad fuel leak should not be too big a deal to fix.

 

Definitely...fuel leak is no problem at all. to replace the fuel line will take you 20 minutes....you can find another line at that particular junk yard....the lines are made of some plastic flex lines....if you bend too much they will kink...OVER THE MUFFLER? the tank opening has three connections/ one dead one. it could be from there. Old rubber hose to fuel pump probably. YES TEDV IS RIGHT, RUST IS YOUR ISSUE HERE

 

I still haven't bought it, but I got under the car today and found that the leak is coming from somewhere in front of the fuel tank high up. I couldn't see exactly where because it was too tight up there. The car definitely gas some rust but it seems as if everything works. I really only want this as a beater salt car but I would still take good care of it. I guess I just have to decide if this is worth $500 to me.

 

Offer him $250 and see if he takes it. Realize that you will be putting a lot of work into it.

 

I offered him $300 and he turned it down. He said policy is that no car leaves the yard for less than $500. It has 229,000 miles. Can I expect 300,000 miles out of this engine? Do head gaskets go bad on these cars?

 

Walk away. You can buy good, running cars with registration for $500.

Regards, Andrew.

 

Yeah, policy bs.....run like the wind....

 

Tell him your policy is not to pay more than $300. Then walk away, as previous posters said.

 

I guess I'm a Volvo noob but $500 for anything that runs sounds like an amazing deal to me. I payed $1,000 for my 740 and it has a cracked dash, missing interior pieces, rust where the roof rack connects, and surface rust in various places on top of running like crap. I guess I'm the dumbass here, bought a piece of crap just because it's a turbo, although in my area Volvos don't go for under $1,000 and Turbos very rarely come up for sale (Mine was the first I saw after looking for months).

 

Yeah I think I'm going to pass on it.

 

Well, you bought it from a private party....screw the "yard policy" if you sell your car to them they give you a rubber band and a kick in the @ss....they don't pay zilch....