Hello! I own an old ford myself, but I'm now the "car guy" to my friends, and one of them has a 1989 740 (dl? some trim-level suffix) with about 130k on the dash (which does still turn over, so likely accurate). This friend is driving it into the ground, and keeps it at a nominally operati...

I'm not as familiar with older volvos, but I own and drive a 1990 ford, and bought another 1989 ford for my sister. My own car, I put $4000 into over the past 2 years. Half of that, was arguably unnecessary and really just for fun. I had a lot of oil leaks out of the engine, which any sane person wo...

Hah! I am remembering when I was even more of a noob than I still am today, and had a spongy pedal after doing brakes and a brake flush. We even replaced the master cylinder in desperation, before it turned out, I'd put the little damping springs on the outside of the calipers on the wrong way! They...

The service light is a dumb timer, that counts down 7500 miles, or some length of time (I do not know how long, it's very rare that a car has the service light come on for elapsed time, before elapsed mileage), since it was last reset. Once on, it stays on. It'll then start saying "overdue"...

sounds like a good plan, if it's a pulley bearing on any of the three. If it's the power steering pump itself -- and that's probably one of the weaker accessories, to be honest-- then it should get louder when you load up the pump pressure (hard parking lot maneuvers). But more often, the pumps just...

agreed. you need to do it. More engines are going back to timing chains, it seems, to avoid this pricey maintenance item... a timing belt is a high-profit item for those who are skilled (read: quick and accurate) at doing them. Maybe talk to the dealer mechanic and see if he'll do it for $400 after ...

have you fixed this yet? I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of volvo models and years, so forgive me if something's a little off. I've done just a couple ignition (lock) cylinders and can't remember which year/model volvo it was. I've done one column lock, on an S40 in fact. It's not the column...

Definitely keep the stock 15". I have 15" rims on my car, and the ride is more comfortable, the tire prices significantly cheaper, and the risk of damaging the rim over every single pothole lower, than when you start going to larger and larger rims with lower and lower profile tires. I see...

Hey! I work at a shop. For the past week there's been a 240 sitting in the spare bay. It is immaculately clean, with a cream colored exterior and gorgeous royal blue cloth interior. Apparently dated 1987-- dunno if these only got better by 1993 and if '87 had weak areas? I talked to the mechanic who...

A buddy with a crown vic went through 4 heater cores before he figured out it was the (wrong) new radiator cap he'd put on a year and a half ago! I wanted to ask, in line with this thread: is vacuum another animal? If you vacuum-fill your coolant, using 25-30lbs of vacuum, can that also do damage to...