My dad used to drive a Volvo 343 Variomatic in the early 80's but then he changed to a Nissan Micra
Fast forward to a few months ago. My wife needs to drive to work and back, 120 km total every day, and she's not really that technically proficient, hence the car needs to be reliable, cheap to maintain and it doesn't matter if it's boring. So she currently drives a Seat Toledo -98 diesel.
This spring I got fed up with going to work by bus, so I got myself an old beater, VW Passat -90... but got soon fed up with it, being totally boring to drive and then there were some running problems related to the carburettor and fuel pump, and the fact that at some point, the engine had been changed and somebody did a bad job at it ... so I started looking for the next car. As winter was coming, I thought that a rear-wheel driven car would be nice. I kind of stumbled upon a couple Volvo 340 that were on sale, which reminded me of the childhood times... then I decided that the next car would have to be a Variomatic equipped 340. Easier said than done, apparently, as there weren't that many on sale that were still in working condition. A couple for-sale ads came and went - they got sold to someone else because I was too slow, or the cars were too far away. So one day, there was an ad for a low-mileage -89 340 DL CVT with very little rust and no fatal flaws. Hmm, really? I decided to act quick, and reserved the car, because the seller was out of the country and couldn't sell it immediately. When the time came, I went by train to check what I was buying, being confident that I'd be able to drive back home (170 km) with it. And... while there were a couple problems with it, the ad was pretty accurate - there were no fatal flaws that prevented running the car in daily use, so I bought it, for 700 euros. A bit more than the other cars on offer were, but they weren't in such good condition. All the seats are still good and all round it's pretty much in original condition. I drove home, and actually got home without problems. Good.
And the obligatory front+side shot of the car:
So, for the problems.
Some previous owner had bumped the right side of the car, there are large dents still on the car, but they've been painted over with well matching paint and rust hasn't come through yet. The damage is large enough that it would be best to replace the right wing and front door rather than try to straighten it out. But to avoid a paint job, I'd have to find them in a matching colour, what my wife calls "Road Camouflage" as it matches the asphalt quite well.
Regarding rust, there is actually very little of it that I could find. A couple spots inside the engine bay near the headlights were a bit flaky, but other than that, solid iron all the way.
The inside light (courtesy light?) is missing. This should be just a minor purchase from the local car breaker, if they have any.
The horn switch on the steering wheel isn't working. One of the previous owners installed a big red button in the centre fascia for that purpose, I wonder if that'll pass the MOT though-
Regarding MOT, the next checkup is in March 2009 so I have good time to check and fix most problems before that.
The windscreen has a large crack, and a stone has left a mark right in the centre of the field of view. This will likely fail the MOT and will have to be changed. Luckily it's not a glued on windscreen so it's easy and cheap to change.
The transmission doesn't always want to go to reverse. But I already traced this problem to the idle RPM - it's too high, and has probably been adjusted this way because the idle is a bit uneven and rough at times.
The low gear hold button makes no difference.
The RPM at highway speeds seems a bit high, probably related to the low gear hold. But clutch engage RPM seems to be OK and the transmission works reasonably well otherwise, although I haven't had the opportunity to actually measure the clutch clearance or belt tension yet.
The engine starts quite well when cold and hot (immediately after being stopped), but when it's been stopped for about 20 minutes, and restarted when still warm, it runs really rough and usually dies several times. A couple minutes of running at normal speeds cures this.
The mileometer is broken and stuck at 70626 km. The MOT checks store mileage information, but unfortunately there's a gap in their records. 1998 was 55000 km but the next recorded reading in 2003 is already 70000. It's probably got something between 100 and 120 thousand km on it now.
There's also a strong smell of gasoline around the car after it has been stopped. Probably a leaky hose somewhere, or the fuel tank breather system.
The doors need to be slammed shut quite hard, or else they won't shut all the way. I'll have to inspect the hinges / lock alignment / etc. at some point.
Quite a list, eh? But I'm still happy with my purchase and have decided to keep it for a longer time, unless some fatal flaw develops. Maybe I'll have to buy another CVT model just for the parts at some point.
Weird thing is, it's got an antenna but no radio - no speakers installed and the fascia just has an empty spot.
After fixing all this (whew!) I'll have to get a better set of summer tyres. I like Volvo original steel rims but not the type that I currently have. The winter tyres (which are good enough for at least a couple more winters) are mounted on such rims, but they're quite rusty already. I'd also like to have a proper RPM dial. Getting a complete 2.0 instrument panel would probably be the easiest way to get that, and I'd get a working mileometer at the same time.
I have the Haynes book already, and know some things about car maintenance in general, but at the moment I'm slowly going through the model specific information and digesting all the extra stuff that's on the web. Mostly here at V3M though. I think there will still be some things that I need to ask questions about, but I'll try to figure things out on my own first.
Of course, having found a valuable resource like this forum, I already made my donation
It's just very, very picky on where the gear select lever should be when reversing. It seems to work almost always when I switch into reverse from the "P" position, and it seems to make a horrible crunch about 50% of the time when coming from the "N" position. So I just don't do the latter anymore.
