Hi Volvo lovers,
I am very sad that I finally have to say goodbye to my beautiful and trustworthy good old swedish brick. I was very lucky when I found the car in February 2015 in Melbourne right after I arrived in Australia from Germany. It is my first car I ever owned and with the proper attention towards the engine and the car I knew it was a perfect car to tour Australia. And so I did. So over the last two years I put about 13 000 km on it and really never had any issues that couldn't been overcome with my $30 toolbox from K-mart (Except the few bigger operations described below). The majority of the miles that I did really happened over the l st 4 months when I transformed the car into a camper van with a bed in the back and did a round trip from Sydney to Port Douglas and back. So needless to say that I totally fell in love with the car and also got involved in so many discussions about the beauty of 240s with likeminded people along the coast between Melbourne and Port Douglas. Especially with the crew of GLT car centre in Brisbane where I had a couple of very good stops and got some great help with the preservation of my 240.
These are the basic specs of the car:
- Volvo 240 GL station wagon with B230F 2.3l petrol engine.
- The odometer stopped at 279 000 km. From the service records
I understand that the mileage was at 215 537 in 2006 so I guess
now it could easily be something in the high 300 000s if not
more.
- Colour: light blue metallic.
- Rego until 10.03.16 Can get a new road worthy without a problem.
Link to the pictures:
https://goo.gl/photos/ZrnKswVGLzPhSMok9
I am asking for $2000 on a negotiable basis.
The car is pretty much in original condition and I am not aware of any modifications that have been made. I was buying the car from the second owner in Melbourne where the car spent most of it's life according to the pretty complete service records. The guy who I was buying the car from regularly drove the car between Melbourne and WA and I think the engine liked the regular long distance drives. He loved the car as well but eventually decided fixing the air condition and radiator would be too much effort and decided to sell it. I was lucky to really quickly find the matching radiator in a 240GL at a wreckers and away I drove. After that, all the other repairs can be classified more or less as regular maintenance. And they are the following:
- Oil and oil filter change every 4000 km as routine
maintenance.
- New aftermarket in-tank fuel pump.
- New front engine mounts.
- Replaced all v-belts in November 2016.
- New aftermarket driver side tail light lenses.
- New BOSCH ingnition leads.
- Replaced one of the radiator hoses between the engine and the
cabin heating heat exchanger.
I will try to give an as precise as possible description because I know there are people who are looking for this modell that value a good condition exemplar. And this is the kind of people I would be most happy to hand the car over to. I would say it is not in mint museum condition yet but despite some typical weaknesses of old age, the overall condition is very good. I start with the up sides that I want to highlight:
- Drives beautifully.
- Starts right away except for the situation described below.
- Strong braking almost up to the standard of modern cars.
- Transmission shifts flawless up and down. Overdrive kicks in
beautifully if needed.
- Nice interior.
- Decent fuel efficieny around 9.5 l per 100 km.
- Doesn't smoke.
- Doesn't consume oil noticably.
- Documented service history and original manual.
- Mastered all tasks I used the car for in the past from rough
gravel roads to towing trailers.
- Decent Alpine radio with USB and auxillary cable.
- Roof rack with cool sundeck :)
And these are the down sides and I hope I could document them as honest as possible in the pictures if possible:
- Aircond was broken when I bought the car and I never could be
bothered fixing it. Not sure whats wrong with it.
- Central locking fails to lock sometimes. Switch in doorlock
is the problem.
- Cold start in wet conditions sometimes needs longer cranking
and engine stays a bit choky until heated up. I assume a
electrical problem is the cause. That's why I had the injector
cables replaced in Juli (BOSCH originals). It reduced the
frequency and severity of the problem which means now at least
the car starts up every time after it got soaked although with
an increased cranking time (up to 10 s). I guess if you had a
garage this wouldn't be too much of an issue.
- In Oktober the engine heated up close to the red area after
one of the radiator hoses broke. The oil pump might have
experienced some slight wear then because ever since the oil
pressure indicator light stays on for a second after a cold
start.
- In the first ten minutes after a cold start the car has a
slight chirping when accelerating. This happens only sometimes
and I tried to get to the bottom of it with Peer but the sound
didn't occur then when I was visiting him.
- Cable in tailgate hinch is worn but central braking light
works most of the time. braking lights up the bulb failure
indicator though.
- Driver seat cover has a hole at the side of the back rest.
Small hole on rear bench (see pictures)
- Milimeter sized dinks that have a little rust at two spots on
the outside. At front driver side and next to tail gate
passenger side (see pictures).
- Roof has crow feet pattern in paint from sun exposure
(picture)
- A clear plastic-coat-like layer of the paint has started to
peel of on the bonnet just recently at two spots (picture)
- The back of the bonnet is bent up a little on one side. This
is the greatest mystery of this car for me because there are no
indications for the incident that could have caused the
bending. I've seen the same thing on one or two other 240s but
no one could ever work out the reason.
- Driver side front day drive light plastic lense has a crack.
- Parking brake feels a bit weak but also I have no comparison.
I took it apart with a mechanic and we couldn't find an obvious
problem.
- Little hole in white ceiling cover close to tail gate
(picture)
- Steering wheel rubber cover slightly worn at top of wheel
(picture)
- Top of dash board has a couple of cracks from the sun. There
is a nice felt type of cover over it which I kept (pictures).
- drivers elbow cracked window seal lip over time :) (picture).
The next thing that I would probably do if I would keep the car longterm is to swap the rear springs, because the rear end sits a bit low and while you're there probably replace the suspensions. This is something a mechanic once recommended but I didn't see the urge because I liked the way the driving feels. But it is a bit low so I always took special care with bumps and so forth especially when reversing...
At the moment the car is in Sydney. I want to sell the car roughly until March. Depending on the conditions I might be able to drive the car up to the area of Brisbane for a potential buyer.
mob: 0413638062
Cheers
Johannes Stark
