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Hi
I'm no expert (far from it!) but I have been slowly restoring a 1986 Volvo 240 that I bought last year. I really love the car (I'm a Euro-car person all the way -- and this is as close as I'm going to get to a small Mercedes on my budget). The car is solid, comfortable, yet easy to maneuver in city traffic. However, I've learned a few hard lessons along the way. Maybe my experiences can help you...
1) I've found that my Volvo is not a difficult car for mechanics to work on or get parts for.
2) As far as safety goes, Volvo has always been about as safe a car in a wreck as there is, right?
3) There are a few things that typically wear out and may need to be replaced. Things to look for:
Engine wiring harness - This is routed very close to the (hot) engine, which slowly bakes the wiring insulation to the point that it crumbles. It's a big job to replace the harness (~$800), and my experience tells me that it's just not worth making small repairs on -- if it starts to go, bite the bullet and replace it. Symptoms: Dash warning lights (battery, oil, etc) stay on even with car driving. Inexplicable stall-outs or no-start conditions. Battery won't stay charged or alternator dies.
Fuel tank pre-pump - If car stalls when fuel level in tank is low, very often the small fuel pre-pump in the gas tank has failed. Replacement is about $350. Mine was completely dead. Replacing it noticeably smoothed out the ride and added a couple of mpg.
Make sure the previous owner(s) changed the fuel filter! I've been told that it should be replaced every 30k miles. The fuel filter on my car is apparently so old that nobody can say how long it's been on there -- and my car has over 250,000 miles on it! This is not a good sign. I hope replacing it will help improve my car some more.
See if the previous owner saved maintenance/repair records. If you know what's been fixed you can make a good guess as to how well the car was cared for. Don't make the mistake I made and buy a car that had no maintenance records at all. What you don't know can really hurt you.
> c. When the car was stopped, it was shaking. (Brake or suspensiong
> system maybe have some problem.)
When I got my Volvo, it was idling slightly rough. This got much worse after a few months, to the point where the whole car would shake from the rough idling. It turns out that one of the fuel injectors had gone defective, spraying an uncontrolled jet of fuel into its cylinder. This would cause that cylinder to be flooded when the car was started causing rough idle from the engine running on only 3 cylinders, but the engine would run OK after it warmed up (defective injector's cylinder would burn off excess fuel and start firing properly). It turns out that the spark plug in that cylinder was always fouling. Replacing the bad injector with a new one immediately helped -- my gas mileage went from about 19 mpg to 23 mpg (highway). A few more repairs now have me at about 25 mpg (highway), which I gather is almost right for a 240 with a manual transmission.
> d. A/C can not work. ( Is it expensive to get it fixed? How much?)
I understand that AC repairs run the gamut from pretty inexpensive (no more freon left in system) to almost not worth it at all (blown compressor, blower, or other critical parts).
> e. Heavy rust at the hinges of all doors. There must be more at the
> chasis.
Pull up the carpets in the driver area and in the back seat area. Check the floorboards for excessive rust. You won't be happy if the floorboards rust out from under you. It can't hurt to check if you can.
If you want to really know what the mileage is, get the VIN number and run a check on it on www.carfax.com ($15 to check one car, $20 to check as many cars as you want for 30 days). I found out that my Volvo didn't have 119,000 miles on it, it had 238,000 :-(. Too bad I didn't check it *before* I bought it!
Please don't take these cautions as evidence that Volvo's aren't good cars -- Quite to the contrary, I really like my old car. But a car that is well cared for all its life will be a lot less problematic in its old age than a car that was neglected in its youth. It appears to me that Volvo's are extremely durable, so if you find an old brick in nice shape and you can see from its maintenance records (and Carfax!) that it was well cared for, I think you really can't go wrong. Best of luck!
Ron G
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