1984 Volvo 245 DL review from North America

Air mass meter failed idles rough.

Fuel injectors need rebuilding (repair quoted $500).

Replaced rear struts, car handled scary!

The overdrive is not working, could be solenoid, switch who knows.

Steering rack needs replacement (quote $600. This means the steering rack boot bursts spewing power steering fluid everywhere.

Pops out of car and now difficult to shift.

Rear window wiper and demister a joke, known fault of car.

The driver side window, flat fell out. Just fell off it's track and out.

Needed replacement ball joints.

Breaks squeak in that charming volvo way.

Right door lock seized, fell off it's track of something, $70 to repair.

Other doors (rear passenger, and rear hatch) have seized, worked intermittantly.

Sure Volvo's are designed to go 500,000 miles right?

And this particular example I bought off a little old lady professor who babied it.

So no problem, right? WRONG, this thing has been a money pit since day one.

The repairs listed above have been just in the past year. I have a phonebook-thick sheaf of repairs the first owner made.

The thing was expensive when she bought it in 1984, and it took an army of swedish-trained technicians to keep it going.

I read hair-raising stories of the nice lady previous owner, left stranded in Tacoma more than than once.

When she sold it to me, I should have taken warning that she gave me countless fan belts, Overdrive switches and hoses to go with it. Oh and headlights, seems that it likes to break headlights.

So the 500,000 miles Volvo story is a bit of a fiction-- perhaps the engine can run that far, but all the other vital parts, including tranny, electrical system, cooling, and door locks (dang, door locks!) aren't.

Think seriously before buying a car. Perhaps mine is/was a lemon. But you just don't have the kind of cash, it will cost to keep your Volvo 240 on the road.

Clean the flametrap? Come on! The design of this auto is pure obscuranta. No one else can fix it, folks buy them and keep them running, because they are ashamed to admit how much cash they've put into it. Who's ever heard of a failing steering rack?

And as a my (sometimes) wise brother said "once you replace every incidental system on this car-- you're still only going to have a volvo wagon."

Seriously buy a subaru, I had a nice 1987 wagon, same color blue. It was a bit smaller, better on gas, had 4 wheel drive (imagine how costly that would cost to keep up if Volvo had made these babies in 4WD!).

Or a honda, do yourself a favor.