Volvo owners?

[Rainmaker]

I find myself looking at older Volvos a lot lately: 240's mostly. A 262c popped up on the Faceballs recently for cheap and I dilly-dally'd too long on it.

Anyway - any of you guys own an older Volvo? Do you like it? What are some of the big quirks, points of failure, bonus features, etc?

Here's a pic of that 262c, just for giggles. Man, I'm so bummed I missed it.

[XEMON]

I don't own a car, but I know a Volvo mechanic, I can ask him if you want ...

[Jonnydread]

Paging Hobbes ...

I've always loved the older rectangle wagons. Never owned one though.

[Hobbes]

I did look into some Volvo 240 and other models years ago. I was looking for something cheap/reliable but a bit unique. I ended up with a 98 Volvo S70. I purchased it for $1100 and ran it without much issue for several years until the head gasket went. There is a very strong aftermarket of parts so you aren't stuck with expensive Volvo parts. I think when I was looking at the 240, a common issue was a seal between the engine and transmission that would leak oil.

[Jonnydread]

I thought that was a gas pump for a second hahahaha

[Hobbes]

I told everyone I sold it to a junkyard but really I let my son douse it with gasoline.

[Cyberpyr8]

I had a Volvo V40 wagon and a 940 sedan. I loved them both. I had the motor die on the V40 after several years (and about 150k miles the block cracked) and spent stupid money to have the motor replaced. But it lasted several more years and I eventually sold it and I really loved that car. The issue with the V40 and why I eventually sold it was the plastics in it literally fell apart. The headlight clips and other plastic parts would just get brittle and break. But the interior and handling on that car were great.

The 940 was a great car but my son drove it out of oil and killed it. I had a mechanic buy a used motor for it but it never ran 100% right after that. Finally some old lady (in Florida, go figure) was driving down the street and reaching for some crackers that fell and totaled it. She pushed it about 30 feet with her crown vic.

They are good cars and a 240 is a good buy in the right condition. The newer models like my V40 and forward are riskier. I would buy an old 240 in a heartbeat. The parts are easy to get but some can be pretty pricey. Finding a good mechanic that is affordable is the key. Most good Volvo mechanics aren't cheap.

[RAZRBAKK]

My dad had an s40 t5 and it was an amazing daily driver. Something it suffered from that a lot of them seem to is electrical problems.

That might be a great white north issue.

[punkncat]

I have owned a couple of Volvo. They were the older boxy models and I cannot for the life of me recall what they were. Both were two doors with a sunroof and one of them had an intake manifold designed for 3 carbs on a 4 cyl motor. I got the other to be a parts donor and pulled the carbs off of it to put on the other. It leaked water into the back floorboard, so I drilled drains into them. It ran really well, handled pretty well for a box, and was actually pretty dependable overall. The biggest issue I had out of it were the electronics. I purchased it via a college shop class that used to run some really good deals on cars that were worth owning if you didn't mind the troubleshooting and headache. We had a very good Volvo mechanic nearby and he got it straightened out for the most part. The only juke repair was the field wire that we had to run "new outside the harness" so that it would charge the battery correctly.

I cannot honestly recall what happened to the car, in so much as what I did with it. I had a bit of an issue with one of the carbs and she backfired up through the intake and caught my cheapo paper filter on fire. Hit it with the fire extinguisher, got her running again and assumedly sold it off to someone for near nothing....

[Cunha]

About a week ago I took a train (7pm to 3am) from Salinas to Redding to buy a 1993 940 volvo wagon after agreeing on the meet up and the time and place and price and after the seller reached out to me to push the sale after I had decided against it.

The seller sold the car sometime like an hour or so after I got on the train. I would have been like an hours drive from my house still at that point.

Needless to say I didn't find out what the hell happened to the lady until around 1pm the next day after standing around outside in the dead hours 3am to 6am when the first businesses start opening and only disgruntled homeless dudes who can't sleep are around.

My wife and kids picked me up that evening and we were home around 2am. =/ it was an OK day though I wish I brought a backpack instead of a messenger bag because I was hoofing around all day.

So that's my volvo story.

Also my wife used to have a 240 and it was a decent car but felt spun up on the highway (maybe the OD was not engaging) and all the knobs and seat belt buckles and door openers hurt me all the time. I think the uglier generation 700 series are better cars but they're not cute like the 240's. Like the white sedan cyberpyr8 had that was wrecked. Those are the best ones.


This weekend I bought a 2005 ford focus wagon for about the same price with about 95k miles. I think the ford focus wagon is a better car choice.

Buy the volvo's if you want something that is a bit more special are good cars just a bit harder to get parts for and have a bit more personality than some things. They aren't as costly and bad as german cars but they are not as cheapo and easy to fix as a japanese car. The engines on the older ones are legendary and the transmissions too though they can start to leak fluid just from aged seals.

Electrical gremlins and dashboard and odometer stuff sucks. Again not as bad or costly as german stuff but not as straight forward not-an-issue as other cars.

But they're comfortable and great.

[Jordan]

I hate Volvos. The cars are a PITA to work on and their owners always think their car should perform as well as it did when it rolled off the dealer lot, in every way, regardless of how many hundreds of thousands of miles/kilometers the vehicle has.

🙂

[Falcon16]

Family has had Volvo for years. Big fan of the 240 and the 7 series turbo cars

[Cunha]

What I found is that the GMT800 suburbans and tahoes are the best cars ever made.

They have dual sunvisors so you can put one to the side and still have one down in front.

I don't think any other feature matches that

Also when you turn off the car and take the keys out the radio stays on till you pull the door handle. 2nd best feature of a car.

And if you don't know how to calculate MPG, you say "This thing gets 450 miles to the tank!" you can feel like you get acceptable MPG too.

The middle row of seats should recline fully flat into a bed tho I dunno wtf they were thinking on that. Pretty much all the seats should recline fully flat into bedlike things.

[DiamondDave]

Recovering Volvo owner. Had an XC70. Made it to about 185000, but not cheaply or gracefully. Still looked like a million bucks but mechanically it was never 100%. The dealer network sucks and many independents are scared of them.

[djeclypse]

I've owned a 1984 240, 1999 s70 and my bestie has a 2006 s80 T6. Religious oil changes and for christ sake keep that PCV system clean. When a Volvo PCV system, aka flame trap, goes bad the engine over-pressurizes and seals go bad and blow out, resulting in extreme oil leaks. FCP Euro, RockAuto and Pelican are my goto sites for parts, in that order.