Having never driven one of these cars that wasn't fairly worn in(out) despite this being my 3rd out of 5 I've owned, and still have two, the last few days have been interesting.

I did a mini-review of the current Sachs gas struts as I was installing them and was not overly impressed. In use they feel "ok", my last refurbished Volvo was an 87 740 turbo wagon and I think I used the same dampers on it, I think the spring rates matched better, or it was more tightly sprung in general. While the ride is acceptable and not obviously up to Mercedes or Jaguar or the like's standards of the era, I do find the amount of sway in the chassis and the amount of chassis flex bothersome. I see why large swaybars and chassis bracing is so common for these cars. And I know now that my personal driving 88 when I go through it(this one is for the significant other), it MUST have said larger sways, stiffer springs, stiffer dampers, stiffer chassis, etc, etc. I've been researching the larger wire diameter 242GT springs for the front and the overload sedan coils for the rear, but that's another thread for another time.

A Mercedes it ain't, but it is a pretty sturdy and solid feeling car once you get used to how much it wants to lean over turning. Despite me playing with at-home alignment it drives well on the highway, it still feels like I'm sitting "on" the car and riding "on" it instead of "in" it or better yet feeling a "part of" it, but it isn't objectionable really. No clunks, no suspension noise. I have poly LCA bushings up front, SuperPro's, no complaints so far. I have red 2 piece MTC's for the rear torque arms that I hope will be quiet as well and take a little "squish" out of the drivetrain. The TAB's were done per my service history about 50K ago and seem to be intact still, panhard seems solid, etc. That body roll really get's me though, might be worth it to at least find a turbo sway bar.

Brakes. Are alright, nothing I'd brag about having driven a lot of (again) 80's Mercedes and Porsche stuff and light A1 VW's. New rotors, hard lines in front, master cyl, rubber lines all around, calipers seem OK, mintex pads in front, textar in rear, soon to be Volvo, trying to get rid of the low speed stop "honk". They are quiet and stop well otherwise. Bled with a power bleeder several times, using ATE DOT4 the pedal is still soft-ish to me and has more travel than it needs. I could see them designing them that way for some safety reason. Feels about like the other 240's I have. I vastly prefer a high, firm, pedal. (think W123 Merc). I don't know where to go to improve them, without spending a ton of money. Braided steel replacements for the soft lines to start with, and ditching that goofy multi-channel brake setup for the later traditional ABS version (minus the ABS) might be a good start. My Mother would like these brakes.

It needs more power. It ought to have more all things considered, so I'm assuming the fuel/spark maps are very conservative, also the camshaft. Sure the compressions low but so was everything else along then. Manual trans swap will help immensely. I couldn't drive one of these every day with an auto. I'd fall asleep.

I'm not displeased overall, I still adore the little boxy tanks, and they are cheap enough and easy enough to work on to offset some of the shortcomings, or what I precieve as shortcomings anyway. My 745T car drove a lot better with fresh underpinnings, but it was a lot newer design too, so. My 73 Mercedes 280 feels like a 911 in comparison though. But it's appetite for fuel makes that bother me less. That's my observations for the week. I hope I can tailor my 88 to suite me more and am not selling it for a huge loss in a year like I did with my 745.