This is the one?
https://www.smythevolvocars.com/used...b558d399e7.htm
Looks like a beauty to me. Nice colors too IMO, and one owner and for sale at the same dealer it was originally bought from 35 years ago and serviced at over the years is the dream scenario for many folks, if they really want a good example of a car. Hard to find that story in real life, but this looks like it.
A lot of the long-time dealers actually do amazingly still have the full set of proper diesel tools on their tool wall even today, and many of them also even still have at least one guy around who remembers how to use them. I have seen it in a few different places and it always surprises but impresses me. It's a remnant of Volvo's old ethic that held the longevity of their products as one of their key features, and was committed to supporting them with parts and service long past the point most new car manufacturers would. A lot of the old dealers were invested in that idea too, to their credit, and believed in having the knowledge and equipment in the service dept to handle any Volvo that might roll in, no matter how old or obscure.
Not all the dealers were good, to be clear. Mis-handling, ignorance, and mechanical screwups by some percentage of Volvo dealers when working on the diesel cars was a big part of how the diesels originally got some of the negative rumors that surround them. Some Volvo dealers, as well as many independent Volvo shops, were experts at taking a fine-running car in that arrived for scheduled maintenance, then badly bungling a routine timing belt replacement job, and handing the owner back a miserable new version of their vehicle that started hard, smoked, was loud, ran poorly, overheated, and lacked power (sound familiar???), and in lots of cases self-destructed with a slipped timing gear and shattered camshaft not too long after, all due to careless and incomplete work. In many of those situations, when the owner brought the car back to get it put right, the ignorant and confused techs would then replace two, three, four, FIVE injection pumps in a row under warranty, incorrectly believing that the pump was the reason for poor starting and running, and each time not improving the outcome, until the dealer finally tells the owner, "well these garbage diesel engines are just unfixable" -- when they themselves were the source of the problem! I've bought some cars that came with service records that told remarkable stories like this.
In reality the VE injection pumps on the D24T engines are tough and reliable and virtually never fail, the same as on all the many other diesel engines where they have been used over the last 40 years. But you can see why a story like what I just described is how many folks would unfortunately get convinced that the pumps were trouble. The same goes for the other problems you read about on the (outdated, inaccurate) SBricks FAQ, which is unfortunately not really an FAQ but rather just a few quotes from confused and frustrated group members speculating out loud and trying to figure things out, mostly 25 or more years ago in the earliest days of internet and email, note the 1991 timestamps! That page now mainly serves to misinform folks rather than help them. Most of the problems described there that you mentioned are issues caused by careless dealers or shops screwing up previously-functional engines and cars with service errors or usage of the wrong type of (cheap, gasoline grade) engine oil, not issues related to the design of the engine itself. That phenomenon was a widespread plague when the cars were new, and is the reason you see some stories of some of these cars dying early and being lemons, and earning the hate of their owners, and yet many others lasting a very long time in reliable use.
But once again, on the other side of the coin (and probably more relevant to the car you are looking at), plenty of other dealers did a good and conscientious job, learning the techniques, training the staff, buying the tools, following the instructions, and delivering quality work and reliable good running cars as a result. It's probably safe to say that if this one is still running well after receiving care in this dealer's hands many times over decades, and if they wanted to buy it to sell after knowing it all this time, then the work it has received has probably been competent.
RedArrow covered many of the other main points well above. Here's my $0.02: these cars are hard to find in really nice shape now. If you want one of these, why not go for it? The likelihood of another one turning up that's equally good is very low; it's clearly in great condition. Especially right now, I have to imagine the dealer would be flexible on their asking price if you give them an honest offer, since they can't have many other folks currently approaching them for it (and they probably only paid the original owner $250 for the trade-in anyway
). The key with any older car is to find one that's as original and whole and clean as you can, which this one certainly looks to be. It's much cheaper and easier overall to pay upfront for a great example like this one than it would be to buy a cheaper, more tired one and try to bring it up to the same condition, piece by piece.
Welcome to the forum and hope you buy it and stick around!
