ugh, bought a new car

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New old car, another old Volvo wagon, but in good shape. I just hadn't wanted to drop that kind of money right now and the guy's obviously a skeeze. My mechanic said the car's in great shape, though, and I trust him -- he's kept my old 240 running forever -- but ugh.

I don't like cars, the whole business scares me. Plus he took another old car as a trade -- hadn't driven it in years and it had become a money pit, but I was sad to see it go.

240s are extremely durable (built to last 20 years), cars these days are built to last 7 years.

Eek! Mine's on borrowed time at 12 years old then. Only done 150000 miles so far, it needs to do at least that again!

They're fantastic, is why I refused to trade it in. Mechanically they're the best, plus fun to drive. Ours also kept us perfectly safe in an accident (got rear-ended hard). But the body's disintegrating, the plastic's finally falling off the wires, the a/c is done (which makes summer driving in the rain/humidity difficult), the blower motor will probably go soon too, and it'll need a new clutch in the next year. Things are leaking -- not fast enough to render it undriveable, but repairs will be necessary.

The new one's only 14 years old, low miles, better safety features, and as of now everything on it works. No rust as far as anyone can make out. I just need to get over myself about it and deal. I'd wanted that money as a backup fund, but oh well. I'm also a little weirded out by the luxury aspects of the new one, never had a used-to-be-expensive car before.

Yeah, seriously. The odometer on mine stopped at about 180K but is probably around 240K now.

Sorry for the ramble, tired...

The body of my car has about 200,000Kilometers on it.

The engine in the car had 650,000+ Kilometers on it when installed, I have put about 100,000Kilometers on it myself. So, we'll say 750,000 on the engine.

The transmission is questionable, was when I pulled it out of the donor car (covered in skateboarding stickers) second gear of course has a grind...

I still have the original engine that came with the car, it has 198,000 kilometers on it. Its been on an engine stand for years (have to move it to the new house on Wednesday, could use a hand...)

The body of the car was stripped, primed, given a tri-koat paint job in Porsche Arctic Silver about four years ago. I sprayed the floor both sides with rhino liner, then applied rubberized undercoat to the bottom of the car over the rhino liner. Wax-oiled all the panels and the minty new rockers. It has enough hydrophobic mass added to it that should I plug the drain holes I should be able to float it down a river. The floors will never ever ever rust.

1986 Honda Civic Hatch. Hf, 1.3L with a five speed instead of the Hondamatic the car came with. Does not leak a drop of oil, still has about 38HP.... So cheap on gas.

Old is good. There is a whole parking lot FULL of old 70's and 80's iron that has been restored in the town I live in. I should get a pic of them.

I notice vehicle trends. Disturbing trend I have noticed lately... Old Tempo's and Topaz's from the 80's and 90's are EVERYWHERE..... it's like they have all come out to forage at the same time soon to go back to their slumber.

#toomanytempos

Whoa, those old Civics are AWESOME. (Unless you're in an accident. Then not so awesome. Drive carefully.) I had an '81 way long ago...most fun car I ever drove. And yeah, a tank of gas would take you approximately to the moon.

Those old cars in general were pretty great. I'm actually keeping the 240 because I expect it to outlive the V70. Around here I'm not seeing Tempos, but there is a sudden blossoming of the 240s, also old VWs (Golfs, Jettas, even a Cabriolet). Old Festivas, Dodge Omnis, even a couple of Rabbits. Square-assed Nissans. People are poor, is what.

What's the point buying new when old but of the more modern generation (reliable) and cheap will do just as well. My Skoda Octavia Estate is all VW bits, including the older 1.9tdi engine which should be good for at least 500000 miles. It does about 40ish mpg, more on a run, less pootling around locally. You can do most work yourself and it is not on finance, it's ours! Happy days.

I just found out what the point is of buying new (okay, used and actually quite old but very well maintained). It seems I accidentally bought a luxury car. This thing's amazing and I'm very glad I'll still have the 240 to drive when the first repair estimate comes in for this thing, but oh my goodness, is this thing sweet to drive. I am totally going to look like I stole this car from some rich dude. I have bought real estate for less than the MSRP of this car when new. I now understand why my normally placid mechanic all lit up and became very enthusiastic about my buying this car, and went on and on about how much car it was for the money.

I highly recommend buying the castoffs of wealthy and obsessively tidy people. Every service record, on the dot.

I like old cars, but I like air-conditioning, too.

My old 1974 car has turned out to be the second longest lasting car on the roads of Britain, a recent classic car mag inquiry to DVLA shows that 25% of them are still on the road, and that doesn't include the ones that are stuck in peoples garages or sorned.

Haven't seen a Volvo 240 here in the UK for about 10 years, at least. Used to be fascinated by these things, for some reason I can't explain, even to myself. Was once on the verge of buying one, but opted at the last minute for a BMW Series 5 2500, which was probably the best car I ever owned!

For a reason which I've never investigated, the Volvo 240 used to be THE car of choice for the Hasidic Jewish community over here, and I'd be interested to know why, and whether this was a worldwide phenomenon amongst this group.

240s are the ur-car. They're a balm for the literal mind.

Never heard of Chasidim going for them, but I imagine it was because you can fit 20 or 30 children in there if you pay no attention to mundane things like seatbelt regulations.

<----------Honda freak here.

I love Volvos.

My dad had a 240 when I was a kid and then got a '91 940 which is what I learned to drive on. He had the 940 for like 15 years with basically no issues aside from minor electrical problems and then sold it to my brother in law, it was running like a champ up until he traded it in like a year ago.

I have a Subaru now and it's outstanding, but if I was going to diverge from Subarus in buying a sedan, assuming I had the money for it it would be almost for sure be a Volvo.