While vacatoning in Mt Renier WA. we discovered our flight back to New York was cancelled, Due to Hurricane Irene in 2011. 3100 miles and the best the airline could do was get us to Chicago. My girl Friend and her sister went about working on other ways back to no avail it would have been 2 wks before we could get back east, big problem !! as we had no time off from work left. what to do? problem solved, we went to craigslist and found a 1990 240 with only 195k miles on it for $600.. I looked it over bought the car on the spot. Was able to fix it for $0 and 2.5hrs of tweeking and adjusting while My girl friend packed the car with baggage and provisions. the radio didnt work and the ac needed a charge which wasn't a problem till we went though S Dakota. a huge bump jarred the car and the front pipe broke at the y ahead of the converter in Idaho, but only hurt the gas milage and maybe our ears. we rotated driving stopped out side of chicago, got a room for quality sleep and a hot shower to wash off the S Dakota sweatand continued east from the middle of Ohio all Through Penn. the scope of the problem came to light There were !8 wheelers parked on the side of the road and anywhere they could fit all the way into New Jersey! 54 hrs after leaving Tacohma Wa we arived to a devistated disaster area. The 240 delivered with only 1 other glitch the power feed wire for the windows broke in the harness in the front door. In which a make do repair with a piece of wire I found in a truckstop shop dumpster temporarily cured. I reluctantly had to sell the 240 because I had used my mortgage payment to buy the car to get home. the good news it sold in 2 days for 900.00 helping offset lost wages. The car is still running fine and the new owner loves it says it ride better than his wife's 2011 Japanese auto. go figure. so if hurricane Sally leaves you stranded this year go to the classifieds and 240/740 yourway home!
By the way there are a lot of great body condition Volvos in Oregon and Washington state, 122's 544's 144's p1800's old 240's etc...if your looking for a low rust vintage/older Volvo, (i'm sure there is a way to post a picture but i Haven't figired it out yet, I'm a mechainc not a computer wizard)