My 1988 240 wagon has always been dependable until last Saturday morning. I went to start it, the engine turned over, but no start, no sputter, nothing. I suspected electrical because the car was cold, the temperature was above 70 deg. and it was humid. So humid that the engine and everything under the hood was moist to the point of dripping (like a cold beer can in August in the south).

I decided to try to diagnose it last night, pulled the coil wire to check for a spark and it started perfectly. My friend and I put the wire back and were rerouting the coil wire with it running when he got "bit". I had a plug wire set and replaced them all. The car runs much better now.

Just wanted to post my experience in the hopes it helps someone else. Sometimes it really is the basic stuff that is the problem. I suspected the car needed wires and should have already replaced them. The car idled and ran much smoother with the new wires.

Hawk

I know what you mean Hawk.A coil or plug wire problem seems like it would obvious.I had a simular experience with no start,and intermitant starting and running fine.The first thing I did,was check all the wires for spark and they all seemed fine,so I spent several weeks trying to everything else to diagnos the problem.I finally decided to change the distributer cap,and found that one of the wires was shorting out near the cap.I changed the wires, and it ran great.Like you said,it is often the basic stuff.