First, thanks for the responses several of you made to my post a few days ago about my son's 240 that had a fire incident. Since then, I have more details to post in the hope of soliciting your advice one more time. My son lives 150 miles away, and I haven't laid eyes the car yet, but here are the facts: A couple miles from his house the car began to lose power after previously running fine at highway speeds for 15 minutes or so. He was barely able to get the car up a small hill even in first gear. When he parked, the engine seemed to idle okay, but that's when he noticed smoke coming from under the car. Now I know the smoke and flames orginated near the front of the catalytic converter and not from inside the engine compartment. A quick hit with a fire extinguisher put it out. All electrical functions on the car still work fine. The car starts and idles smoothly, but will barely rev, and a check at the tailpipe shows little increase in exhaust flow when you give it gas. Bonehead question--can a partially obstructed C.C. get hot enough to ignite grease, undercoating, and anything else nearby? (I've made lots of repairs on my Volvos, but I never had one go bad--or on any other vehicle). Does everything here point to a bad C.C.? The only pre-existing condition that I know of is the car was getting harder to start as the temps have begun to drop in Minneapolis and a little harder starting on rainy days at all temps. Any advice on where to buy a C.C. if it turns out to be bad?
Many thanks for hanging in on a long post.
Sven