The following is a post that I made at Sewdespeed the other night. After reading more at that site, I felt that my story was really not posted to the correct community. So here it is again, but posted where it is probably more relevant (I am not a tuner at all, but just need to get my brick running well again in more or less stock shape.)

YET ANOTHER VOLVO STORY

Hello, folks!
I just joined a few minutes ago and am posting to introduce myself via one of my cars:

I own a 1990 740 that is about to hit 300,000 miles (next month????) and is in BAD shape. It is my second car. My daily driver is a 2003 Jeep Wrangler SE and my wife's car is a 2001 Honda Accord LX. I purchased my Volvo in 1999 from one of those monkeys that turns back odometers on auction cars and has them repainted as cheaply as possible. (He is now in jail for that crime, as well as a whole lot of other ones.) I knew absolutely zilch about purchasing cars at the time and still wonder whether I was taken.

I had no real concept of how frequently or badly this vehicle would break down, and I also had no clue about following any sort of service schedule. I was a VERY poor musician at the time of this purchase, and as my 1989 Buick Skylark died a lingering, painful death, I was forced to buy something without much time to research and learn.

My best friend in the symphony was very nearly killed in a head-on collision at this time (and after 11 surgeries over the past six years he still has a pronounced limp).

So my wife pushed me to get a Volvo.

(In fact, we ended up with about 16 new volvo owners in our ensemble over the next year or so because of our clarinetist's near-death collision. The musicians in my orchestra tend to drive well over 24,000 miles every year to gigs, so this accident really had us spooked.)

Enter my shiny, new (to me) Volvo 740.

I have never had such a passionate love/hate relationship with anything other than the instrument that I play for a living. This thing came out of the blocks as the nicest car that I had ever owned (not really saying much) and I had never felt so confident in the rain or around the drunks on Friday nights. It drove so well and was so much more fuel efficient . . .

And it cost me over $2400 in repairs in the first six months!!!!!!!!

It just kept breaking! And, my GOD! the cost was horrible!

So I very nearly sold it before the first year was up.

Then I saw my first Volvo accident.

I saw a 740 like mine that had been rear-ended by a Crown Victoria Police Cruiser. The cop car was not a traffic or patrol car, but a Shift Supervisor unit, so it was lacking the "bull bar" and other front end reinforcements. The CV's front end was totaled: hood shoved back at least two feet, engine and tranny on the ground, pushed back, bumper folded up like foil . . . and the Volvo had one rear tail light smashed. The trunk lid was fully functional. The paint was still okay. The bumper cover plastic was somewhat cut and scratched up . . . and that was it.

So I doggedly stuck by my crummy 740 until it just became too expensive to keep fixing and my credit improved enough to buy something newer. I drove the old car for a few months after buying my newer one. But I eventually switched over to the newer one for good. When I could not start the 740 one morning, I drove my Jeep for the first time on my daily 90 mile round trip to one of my gigs and discovered that it was not too bad on the highway at high speeds. So I just sort of settled into the new vehicle permanently.

My 740 has been up for sale locally as a parts car for over a year now. Even as a parts car no one seems to want it.

It has not been started since that day that I gave up on it. And I had just filled the gas tank the night before, too, which was quite an annoyance to me. Oh well. So there it sat, filthy, and worthless, and bleeding oil slowly on the street, untouched – UNOPENED – for about 14 months.

Yesterday I had to move it; no choice in the matter. I hooked up the jumper cables and the SOB cranked up on the first try, in only three seconds! I had to take it about 40 miles away to my new home, at night, and had my wife follow me in case it died (it was running quite poorly when it finally quit on me the year before). While driving, I checked my fuel gauge and found to my shock that less than a gallon had evaporated in 14 months of sitting! And everything still worked (or didn't) as it had before.

I am amazed. This old, beat POS still wants to live!

So I am going to restore her as best I can over however long it takes me. I installed a new battery this afternoon and drove about 150 miles with the windows down and a smile on my face.

This car gets saved no matter what.
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Mama always told me to eschew obfuscation . . .