Hello Everyone-

I'm new here and thank goodness I found this website! My wife and me finally bought the car we always wanted-1990 Volvo 240 DL, Burgandy-and she's an absolute beauty!!

Now for the problem & question...

I'm a large fellow and I'll be very honest about this-sitting behind the steering wheel is not only extremely tight but quite uncomfortable. On the advice of our Volvo mechanic, great guy here in Northern NJ by the name of Robert at Rawbear Performance, I went in behind the drivers seat and made the adjustment to bring the seat back & down... no dice, I'm still 20 pounds of &^$% in a 10 pound bag. Outside of that the only thing that has been suggested is a smaller steering wheel (which our mechanic said is no problem to do but we'll lose the airbag in the process according to him).

Anyone here have any suggestions? I'm trying to lose weight but I must say I never have this kind of tight fit in a car before... I'm talking really tight!

Perhaps worse than the fit behind the wheel is the getting in & getting out of the cockpit itself.

When I get in the driverside door I basically lower myself down, get half of myself onto the seat, bend my neck to fit my head in and then with my hand behind the steering wheel kind of hoist myself the rest of the way in and getting out is worse...

I sort of turn, get both feet out, push hard off the steering wheel with my right hand while hooking my left elbow on the outside of the door frame and even then my gut is getting squeezed on the right side from the lower part of the steering wheel. To illustrate just how tight the fit is, I've pretty much had black & blue marks on the rightside of my abdomen (I think I get them more getting out than getting in) from the steering wheel since we bought the 240.

This is bumming me out... I finally get the car I've always wanted and the inside of it seems built for the slim only.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Seems to me that somewhere between a smaller steering wheel, having a tilting wheel(which I'm told is nearly impossible even at ANY cost) and being able to retro-fit the drivers seat further back this is workable... HELP?!?!