--Lower door trim: I've ordered the gray dye stuff, should be here soon. I pulled two of these off the doors of a junk 240 (mine are OK but one's been flapping in the wind halfway off for months). When replacing these is there any magic special stickyback tape better than the Scotch Heavy-Duty white stuff I got? Getting the old tape and adhesive off shouldn't take more than oh six hours... whee.

--mystery tweety-bird noise: I don't know if ABS sensors make any kind of noise, but now I'm hearing the exact same tweety-bird sound, usually on highway ramps with the windows down, as I heard from my last two cars with ABS, a VW and an Audi. It is speed and engine-rpm independent, high-pitched and repeats 3-4 times a second, I think. My 240 has ABS.

--speaking of Klanky, sometimes when I start her up there is a mild clunk from below the car, like someone's kicking the floor. Checked the exhaust, no apparent broken hangers. Do I have a gnome infestation?

--sometimes I hear a cracking/snappy sound from the rear end at low speed. It's independent of wheel rotation. Checked the lugs but otherwise mystified. If it was rotation-related I'd suspect the axle bearing on the left side, but it's not.

--oh and speaking of that junked 240, it's also a 1991, automatic. Are there any late-model 240 parts I should be particularly aware of? My car is LH3.1, so I know the fuel injection parts won't interchange. It looked like someone had done a nice aftermarket radio install so I cut the harnesses off and kept them, for an Alpine head unit (which was sitting in the back seat, but there's no faceplate and yes I looked pretty thoroughly). I was told that the 1991 & later cars have a small amplifier through which the speakers are wired, instead of at the head unit, and I took apart the console to try and ID those wires but couldn't really figure it out. Sadly, this car has a decent front air dam but the junkyard takes the wheels off all cars and just dumps them in the dirt, so I can't really get at it. Grr. The current one is flapping around because the upper mounting holes are all torn out.

If you find these multiple-choice posts annoying let me know.

Oh, and on my way out of the junkyard I met the owner of the white 240 parked right next to my white 240. What year did they do the all-black trim and grille? I saw another one like this later, in silver, and thought it looked pretty sharp.