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My last car was a 1993 940 Turbo, which is obviously very similar to the 760 Turbo you are looking at, and my girlfriends last car was a 1987 740 Turbo wagon, which is almost the same as the 760 T in question. You didn't mention mileage, which obviously makes a difference, even with a Volvo... The bodywork is virtually indestructible, unless it was damaged and not repaired properly, so the same checks apply here as with any used car. One thing that did happen with our 740 T was the floorpan in the passenger footwell started to rot out! Apparently, this is a fairly common problem on these cars. Usually, it starts from the inside out, because the underbody sealer does a very good job of keeping moisture out, so the root of the problem can stem from a bad windshield seal, a bad door seal, or a bad seal in the front firewall. If it was not for this problem, we may actually still own that car, so I think it is one of the biggest things to look for. Check for a smell of dampness in the car, water stains on the carpet, get under the car and knock on the underside of the floorpan to check the solidility. The engine and transmission should not be in question, if they have been any way well maintained - this is the B-230 series (known in Volvo circles as the 'red' engine), so the thing is pretty indestructible. The four cylinder 740 or 760 Turbo is definitely the engine to go for - as others have said here, do not touch a 6 cylinder with a 40 foot pole. Since this car is turbocharged, if it's up around 200,000 miles, the gaskets will be starting to get old, so replacing them could be on the cards. A gasket set for a Turbo is around $400, and it's about 10-12 hours labor to install, including doing valve seals. If everything else is good, it's probably worth doing. This car has the older Turbo, which does not spool up as quickly as the Mitsubishi turbo on the 940 series Volvos, but it can be manually set for more boost, which is a plus if you choose to do this. (stock boost is 7 lbs, you can go to 14 pretty safely, picking up about 7 hp per pound of boost you add.) I'm guessing this car is automatic, occasionally the transmission oil cooler can fail, but there is no real way to check for symptoms of that, it usually just lets go without any warning, if it does fail. The radiator does usually go at some point too as the car gets to 200,000, but that's not terribly expensive. With any older car, bushings, tie rod ends, etc., will be in tough shape if not already replaced. The dash will probably already have a few cracks, the doorbins crack and fall apart, and the panel on the inside of the rear wagon door often falls away from the door itself. The power locks occasionally go on the fritz and the power windows can have switching problems. I think these interior problems are very minor, and cheap to fix. You probably already noticed that the steering wheel came from an 18-wheeler. Really, not a lot goes wrong with these Volvos, and to give you an idea, I would much prefer a 150,000 mile 1989 Volvo 760 T wagon to a comparable SAAB as an inexpensive used second car - there is soo much less likelihood of something going expensively wrong. I don't have first hand experience of a C900, but my feeling is that parts will cost similar $, but you will need quite a lot less of them. Can I ask you a couple of questions? What is the mileage on the car? Where in the country are you? Is it automatic? How cheap is it?! If you are willing to spend a little money to spruce up the car, IPD offers a lot of inexpensive items to fix common problems. http://www.ipdusa.com Turbobricks is a good forum, though there tends to be a lot of blinkered Volvo-philes intent on building 300 bhp 240s! One upgrade I think is definitely worthwhile is IPD's swaybar kit - maybe the best $200 you will ever spend on this car, especially if you are used to SAAB handling!
posted by 63.217.1...
, Fri, 21 Sep 2001 02:46:33
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