Peter K L Milnes said:
Oh how you stick with your "died in the wool" dislike of diesels. 'Tis time
for you to update yourself. My 945 accelerates from 0 to 62 mph in a shade
over 9 seconds. As I have said before it has been tuned and puts out around
20% more bhp than the standard 122 bhp (intercooled turbodiesel). The life
expectancy is certainly in the order of a minimum 500,000 miles at which
mileage the engine will need a small amount of work to keep it running for
another 500,000 miles. They use the cleanest, greenest fuel around and put
out much less particulates than a small petrol engine. I agree to steer
clear of the 240 diesels as they had no turbo and only put out about 85-90
bhp. There are quite a few 740 turbodiesels (109 bhp) with both AW71
+overdrive autoboxes and also M46 +overdrive manual boxes (at least in
UK/Europe for the manuals). The facelift 760s and the 940s were available
with ZF auto (as were quite a few petrol engined cars including petrol
turbos) but I do not think that those with M90 box (like mine) ever made it
to the North American continent. The fact that a long commute is envisaged
means that the diesel would be ideal, but as I indicated above preferably
740/760 turbo version or 940 turbodiesel (with intercooler as the 760 GLE
turbodiesel has fitted to it). My 945 averages 35+ mpg (Imperial) on mainly
short journeys yet bests over 42 mpg on motorway journeys (33 mpg towing a
caravan).
Holy crap man, will you drop it already? This guy is in the US (or so I
assume), he wants the car for his non mechanically inclined son to commute
in. The merits of *your* super tuned 940 TD have nothing to do with someone
in the US who doesn't know how to work on their own car. Are *you* willing
to come over and work on it whenever it has a problem? Would *you* like to
come change the timing belt when he can't find a shop within 200 miles
willing to touch the thing? Are *you* going to personally help him diagnose
problems in a 20 year old car that has probably had poor maintenance due to
so few mechanics knowing how to properly work on it? That's just fine and
dandy that you can get late model 900's with Diesels over there, but the
simple fact is you *can't* get those here, the options are '86 or older 700
series with a mechanically injected VW inline 6, of which 90% were
automatics, perhaps 30% were turbo, and a scant few intercooled. This is the
*same* exact engine used in the 240 Diesels you yourself say to avoid. I try
not to be rude but why you can't get it through your head that I *DON'T
DISLIKE DIESELS*, I fairly regularly drive a wonderfully torquy turbodiesel
truck, but that I (and virtually anyone else on this continent that you talk
to) don't like *THE PARTICULAR* diesel Volvo used in the early 80's. Also I
would *love* to see *ONE* with 500,000 miles on it, or better yet a million
miles and still running, anybody? Come on, if 500k is nothing surely a few
of you have 500, maybe 600 or 700k on your old 80's diesel Volvo? Perhaps
someone in the UK where the diesel is lower in sulphur? A pic of the
odometer even? A friend who's friend's sister's cousin's friend once had
even? So far most of the ones I've seen have been dead in junkyards, with a
scant few running ones smoking and rattling badly, none had over 150k on
them. I don't care how wonderful *your* 945 is unless you can spawn a bunch
of copies over here because it doesn't do any of us a damn bit of good
recommending something we can't get! It may be a grand deal over there but
you're recommending an obscure old car to a student who will have to search
high and low for someone to maintain it for him, pay a premium for hard to
obtain parts and more expensive fuel (yes Diesel costs more per gallon than
petrol here) and in the end the car's resale value will be half that of a
petrol model.
