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I am the owner of a 1991 wagon and love the car so much that I went on the hunt for a sedan. Being from Massachusetts my biggest concern was finding a rust free car. Well, peoples version of rust free I discovered is very different. I looked at several cars locally that just weren't what I was looking for. I wanted a 1 or 2 owner car, impeccable maintenance, zero rust, and with the lowest miles possible. My budget was not limited, but I was thinking $7000 would get me what I was looking for.
I searched Craigslist via Autotempest.com multiple times a day and kept telling myself to be patient that the right car would "find me". I found one car in Texas that was promising, but the honest owner said the car had been repainted and looked like it was a non windows out cheap re-spray. The seller was a retired Volvo mechanic that "freshens" these cars up as a hobby and sells them. Other than the re-spray the car was under 100,000 and seemed to be very well sorted mechanically. I just knew I would not be happy with a car that had a paint job where you could see imperfections when up close to it. Thank you for the seller and his honesty.
The search continued. I found a pristine 1992 5-speed in Maryland that ticked all of my requirements except for the low miles. The car had 220,000 and while I know the red block motors run forever if maintained properly, the rest of the car still had 220,000 miles on it and things wear just like any other car. I passed and continued to search.
Then, two Saturday's ago I was enjoying my morning coffee, I went through my morning ritual of searching Craigslist across the US and I came across a new add in Texas. By now I had become pretty familiar with the cars being sold on Craigslist and after reading the add and looking at the pictures I just got "a feeling" about the car. The add had been up for only 5 hours when I called the seller, chatted briefly and I committed to buying the car site unseen.
Craigslist reads as follows:
82500 Original Carfaxed Miles. Original Paint with No Nicks or Dents. Very Clean Inside and Out.
New Front Seat Cushions and Seat Covers Washed and Sun Dried. New Front Upper Strut Mounts. Synthetic Castrol Titanium Oil and Mann Filter 300 miles old. A/C just Serviced and Blowing Cold. A/C Compressor Running very Quiet on all Four Fan Speeds.
Recent Front and Rear Engine Main Seals. No leaks at all. Recent Timing Belt with Tensioner. No Cracked or even Chipped Windshield. No Rips or Stains on Seat Fabric. All Electric Windows and Locks Work as they should. New Rubber Floor Mats.
No Accidents and No Corrosion Anywhere. Michelin Tires on Classic Corona Aluminum Wheels.
This is an Iconic 28 year Young True survivor, far from the Ordinary, that should give Excellent Service with Economy and Safety for the Next 28 years with proper care and maintenance.
An Automobile Designed and Tested by Volvo Engineers to Save Lives.
Recent Texas Inspection and Registration in my name. Clean Texas Title in hand. Daily Driver.
The owner was an enthusiast who also owns a wagon. I wired him the money and made plans to fly to Texas and drive the car back to Massachusetts. Yes, 2400 miles on a site unseen, never test driven car. I was either the dumbest person on Earth, overly enthusiastic, or just put a lot of faith in the Volvo 240's dependable reputation.
The trip to pick up the car began at 4:30AM on a Friday morning to catch a flight that left out of Hartford, CT at 6:30AM. I arrived in Laredo, Texas at 2:30PM where the seller picked me up at the airport. We drove the 10 minutes to his house where I saw the car for the first time. It was as nice or nicer than advertised. I gave it a quick once over, put my MA plates on and I was away on a 2400 mile road trip without even so much as taking the car around the block. Again, a huge leap of faith. I headed out of Laredo and headed North towards Houston. My plans called for driving to Houston, across Louisiana on I-10 then head North through Mississippi and Alabama, on I-59, I-75 across Tennessee, I-81 through Virginia and Pennsylvania and eventually I-78 in New York and home.
The car was driving nicely. The AC was working properly and I was settling into the car and getting to know it. There wasn't much else to do between Laredo and Houston after-all. My first observation was the windshield wipers were no match for the thousands of yellow moths/butterflies that met their demise on my windshield. Note to self, on long road trips a windshield squeegee is a necessity. I did notice a bit of a front end shake at speed and knew I would not drive 2400 miles without having it looked at. I was assuming it would be cured with a simple re-balancing of the tires. Or that was my hope anyway.
I stopped for the first night in Wharton, TX and planned on finding a tire store the next morning to have the front end shake addressed. I got on the road at 4:30ish and arrived in Beaumont, TX just at the time everything was opening. This is where my morning got a bit stressful. My first stop out of ease was Walmart, but their compressor was down so no tire work. My second stop a few miles away was the Goodyear store where I discovered, as I kind of had assumed, that the tires were manufactured in 2010, so being 8 years old I decided to just replace them. Well, 14" tires are not as easy to come by as they probably were in the 1990's. Goodyear had none in stock. Luckily Discount Tire literally right next door had 4 Continentals in stock and I was soon back on the road. No more shake and the car drove like a dream anywhere between 80 and 85 MPH. I continued to check the oil and coolant at every fuel stop and not a single issue. I got off the road around 8:30PM calling it a night in Cleveland, Tennessee. A hot shower and bed would feel great after a long day and many miles. Up on Sunday and back on the road at 4:30AM for the last leg of my trip. GPS calculated this leg at 980 miles taking around 15 to 16 hours. This was going to be a long push. Other than having to divert East towards DC to avoid emergency bridge construction on I-81 the trip was uneventful. Traffic in the DC, NJ, and NY areas was heavy on Easter Sunday, but I pulled into my driveway around 9:00PM that night.
The car performed flawlessly. The road trip was an experience, but it would have been nice to have a travel partner and maybe take twice as long and see some sights along the way. I have had the car home a day and am already addressing some small, mostly cosmetic issues with the car that I will cover in my next post.
Appears from the pics and your description that you got a great car. I wish you luck with it and many enjoyable miles. On the other hand I must admit your closing sentence has me a bit amused. Based on your history of past cars they all seem like boring cars to me. I guess we have a different version of what boring means. Hey different strokes for different folks. Enjoy the ride.
I guess "boring" is subjective... Maybe "not run of the mill" would be more fitting. I have owned BMW E30's, the Porsche Cayman S can't be considered boring, the Audi TT and it's AWD is great even in the Winter, and I have owned other "not boring" vehicles like 40/60/62/80/79 series Landcruisers, a 1968 WM300 Dodge Power Wagon, a 1972 Porsche 911 Targa, a 1987 BMW M6 (1 of 1400 in the US) based off the M1 super car that was recently sold to a collector in Poland and others along the way. I guess I just like something different.
The interior bits that are being addressed and have been ordered to replace cracked or weathered pieces are:
- New parking brake console.
- New "B" pillar trim pieces.
- New dark blue door pockets to replace the swapped in black ones.
- New rear parcel shelf seatbelt covers. These are very sun weathered.
- New rear parcel shelf plastic vent pieces. These too were weathered by the sun.
- And some SEM "paint/dye" to re-color the faded rear parcel shelf
I also bought all the parts to change the timing belt, new water pump, new plugs, cap, rotor, belts, air filter, front strut inserts, rear shocks (I saw one was leaking when I had the new tires put on) and will give under the hood a good cleaning.
I guess "boring" is subjective... Maybe "not run of the mill" would be more fitting. I have owned BMW E30's, the Porsche Cayman S can't be considered boring, the Audi TT and it's AWD is great even in the Winter, and I have owned other "not boring" vehicles like 40/60/62/80/79 series Landcruisers, a 1968 WM300 Dodge Power Wagon, a 1972 Porsche 911 Targa, a 1987 BMW M6 (1 of 1400 in the US) based off the M1 super car that was recently sold to a collector in Poland and others along the way. I guess I just like something different.
OK I just consider anything with more then 2 seats to be just a run of the mill commuter car. Something like my week end driver.
I love the Ferrari. I would love a 355 or 360, but the engine out service expense is just too much for my budget. My Cayman S with a bit over the stock 300 HP satisfies my need for speed when I want to just enjoy a weekend drive on a few twisty back roads.
I always like to remove the back seats of a new purchase to see what surprises may await me. This car did not disappoint. There was a pile of change on the passengers side. Someone who rode in the back seat was a world traveler. I even found an old Wheat Penny in the mix.
What is this part called? It covers the wheel well on the passenger's side in the trunk. Mine is very warped and I would like to either fix it or replace it.
It looks like it is made out of some sort of fiber reinforced plastic or something. Anyone have a trick to "coax" it back to more of an original shape?
Well I can't say I'm in the same class
as you guys what with Ferraris and all, but here's a comment about the old 740 Volvo - before you take it to the tip GRAB THE RADIO! My 740 unfortunately dropped all its water from a corroded heater valve behind the motor doing 110 Km/hr. Not having my eyes glued to the temperature gauge the first notice I had was a loss of power - but of course by then the motor was pretty well cooked. Even so maybe with a new head gasket I could have saved it, but the prognosis was just too daunting. So I "upgraded" (total misnomer, that one!) to a Ford AU. I soon found out that they don't call Volvos 'bricks' for nothing. At least being nice & square you can get things in and out of them really easily. Anyway the Ford 'radio' if you can call it that plays half a dozen stations at the same time - it's a disaster! So I put my 740 Volvo radio in - see wiring diagram which is almost impossible to come by - and I've got my high quality stereo sound back - ONE STATION AT A TIME! The tuning in those radios is really good. Also they don't have a stupid anti-theft security number which takes up unnecessary electronics, nor are they virtually impossible to get in and out of the car like in the Ford - I had to demolish the radio to get it out (no loss whatsoever!) As if anybody is going to pinch a car radio these days?! I mean how much could you get for one - 75 cents? Certainly the Ford one couldn't be GIVEN away.
Volvo 740 radio's are now extinct. I have 2 bad ones in my basement and had to put in an aftermarket system which is of much better quality. I don't like the look but at least I have something that works. Unfortunately my bride won't give up her 89 740 with 372K miles on it. She is looking to hit 500K but we'll have to see. Motor is untouched .
I've put the Pioneer DEH-X6900BT in several cars now, Mercedes, Toyota, Ford, and if you set the display colors to Custom, 40-30-30 (red-green-blue) for both key and display, they don't look too unreasonable, the bluetooth functionality works great with my Android Pixel phone, the radio reception is excellent, and they have both front panel aux in and USB, as well as rear panel subwoofer and preamp outputs if you decide to go fancier on your sound. the stock 50x4 amp drives factory sized speakers just fine without additional help.
I am not sure how this got onto the topic of radios, but I wouldn't put a new system in a vintage car, to me it spoils the whole look of a car. I don't care how much it costs to rebuild the original radio I will spend the money to maintain the stock system. Then again, I am not a huge audiophile. I had a deck in a 1990 BMW E30 rebuilt last year and it cost me $350.00. A small price to pay, IMHO, to maintain the integrity of a classic car. I will do the same for my new Volvo.
Trunk area is in great shape other than needing a good cleaning of the Texas dust. For better or worse it even has the original space saver spare tire and I think I was the first one to ever open the tool kit in the car's 28 years.
Always nice to see a classic car that still has it's original window sticker. The car has all of its original owner's manuals and even an original sales brochure and a paint/interior colors brochure. I am not sure if these have been with the car since day one, but I have no reason to believe that they could not have been given to the original owner back in 1990 and just stored away for safe keeping ever since considering they did the same with the window sticker.
Always nice to see a classic car that still has it's original window sticker....
heh. the 2002 Ford Superduty F250 7.3L Powerstroke 4x4 I just bought, I found the window sticker neatly folded in with the owners manual. Exactly which options it came with, yada yada. $38000 new
the F250's window page was printed on some sort of plastic, which has held up much better than the soft paper used on my 80s, 90s cars.
heh. the 2002 Ford Superduty F250 7.3L Powerstroke 4x4 I just bought, I found the window sticker neatly folded in with the owners manual. Exactly which options it came with, yada yada. $38000 new
the F250's window page was printed on some sort of plastic, which has held up much better than the soft paper used on my 80s, 90s cars.
Changed out the perfectly good black door pockets for the proper blue ones. The blue color is pretty dark and by themselves are hard to tell if they are blue or black. The real difference can be seen when the black is held up against the blue or when the sun hits them when the doors are open.
04-03-2018, 05:46 AM
TX to MA 1990 240 DL Chronical
