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Hello everyone.
Here's my situation. I hope it brightens your days.
I bought a 1991 240 from a good friend a year ago. After 4-5000 dollars in repairs I have a number of awful problems. I am also unemployed while writing my dissertation so the combination of general poverty with an aging Volvo is not really conducive to benig a star owner of a magnificently restored star of Brickboard, alas. Also, the car is an automatic which sucks as well. It's got the B230 without the turbo so it's sluggish as hell as well with no cruise control or arm rest to make the driving experience more pleasant.
Anyway, here are the main problems.I live in southwest Virginia in Roanoke for the moment after moving here from Minneapolis.
1. The engine runs very loud with a horrible pulsing sound at idle and while running. The car has new plugs and wires, I did a Firestone fuel system treatment. The O/2 sensor is relatively new as well. I replaced the motor mounts recently because the engine was shaking so much. Though the mounts were in need of replacement, the engine still shakes. The engine has around 175000 miles on it. A mechanic told me the engine might outlive me and at the time I had some health issues so that was not exactly reassuring. Now I'm healthy but the car is not.
2. There is a high pitch whine, really loud, when I exceed 65 mph or so. Sometimes it starts at a lower speed and sometimes at a higher speed. No one knows what it is. After some research it seemed the problem might be the odometer (had it done for 250 dollars - a waste) but to no avail. No one has any ideas, but I get charged for having someone listen to it so I've about given up. This summer I was back in Minnesota and had some mechanics try to listen to the noise. Unfortunately, that day the noise was not really evident. It must have been the only such occasion.Any ideas? It's nearly impossible to drive with the noise. It's loud and cring inducing.
3 This is a problem just to indicate what a pain the car is. I replaced the radio with a nice Alpine unit with component speakers in all doors and an amp. But the damn antenna is bad and the radio signal is iffy. Bad karma, I guess. The same noise as before. The antenna is in the back so could this be a really hard thing to fix?
I've replaced the rear trail arm bushings, a steering sector something, timing belt, tires, wheel bearings, gas gauge, light units, other stuff I can't remember,both front ABS sensors (another 500 bucks after the local Volvo dealer here in Roanoke charged me 135 just to scrape off rust and tell me I needed complete front end backing plates . . . I took the car back to Minnesota and got the sensors), had the overdrive relay fixed twice, the first time by local Volvo "specialist. " He was a man with an inscrutable accent, a diabetic with a limp who seemed to live on microwaved corn dogs dipped in mustard and Pall Malls who told me while leaning over the shifter with a two inch ask on his smoke that the spark and smoke coming from the shifter box was "no big deal." Then I had to find someone else who fixed it. The exhaust cracked on the way from Philadelphia back here and I had to get that replaced plus both of the mufflers . . .
Another shop put on some turbo sway bars. Then I began to hear a noise from under the car. The local Firestone dealer had bent the muffler hangars but that wasn't it. They had the whole shop looking for the problem. A mystery. Finally, at the auto spring place, a guy discovered that the shop that had put the sway bars on had not tightened them.
The entire suspension was shot and had to be replaced. Only after dropping 900 bucks on that did my research indicate that the Firestone Ryder shocks up front and cheap Monroes on the back were not the Bilsteins I should have used. The shifter has come unglued and I'm holding the pieces with one hand and shifting with the other. And on and on. Of course, after fixing all that I want to keep the car now and the interior looks like new. Like hitting a hole in one after shooting 110. I'm a first class idiot which is hard work as you can see from this. Can somebody help? Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Warren
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