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I paid $400.0 for my 1972 145 - my 1st volvo (and second car ever) in 1993. I was 19 and in college. The car was older than me. So $2700 seems a bit high to me...
My 145 was excellent in snow and ice. I lived about 12 miles out the town at the time and it did slide a coupe times on the icy backroads of Missouri, but being such a heavy car, it was quite controllable.
The main issues I experienced were:
Rust!!!
I did not have one of those "Belgian Rustflowers" but my floorpans were eaten away along with the rockers. This let the car suck significant exhaust back into the car and really upset the gal who later became my wife. It also let a lot of gravel road dust into the car and made keeping it clean impossible.
Clutch
I burned up a clutch when something went "sproing" and the clutch became useless. $40.00 clutch plate and my first real experience crawling around under the car. It was down for over a week.
Alternator
Died. my skilled mechanic went and made me some new parts because you could not get new brushes for the car...
Headlights
Goofy reflector thing, replaced by sealed beams that never aligned properly...
Fuel
Leaking tank required some JBWeld inginuity. The never quite functional fuel gauge got me stuck more than once.
Speedo/Odometer.
Was unhooked when I bought the car. Mileage was completely unknown. I reattached the speedo and the things made a horrible wizzing noise on the highway. The previous owner disconnected it (when?) because of the noise.
Windows.
The runners that hold the back windows were rusted out and the windows dropped abruptly once day. I had to MacGyver it together.
Also, the glue that holds the vent window pivots and vent window locks, pops off and is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to reattached permanently. I was lucky in each case and caught the glass, but this made life harrowing because parts were hard to get in the early days of the internet.
Heater Valve
It was leaky and eventually HAD to be replaced with a new unit from the nearest Volvo Dealer (130 miles away).
With the manual gearbox, the short shifter retaining ring would work loose and the short shifter would suddenly pull free... While driving...
I feel I could tackle these problem better now with the full resources of the internet and the brickboard, but back then, these were terrible annoyances and I was a young inexperienced kid with no good wrenches and no money at all.
I did love volvos. I saw my first 122 back then and now I own three...
I kinda miss that 140 some times.
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