So glad everything went well. To be expected with a 940.

My longest trip around 3 years ago was a trip to the west coast of Ireland as Renovating a holiday home.

The 1989 240 GLT made it several times and stayed for 2 months no major issues except gearbox auto cooler pipes sprang huge leak. Got some from Tralee Volvo and delivered by friends to me. Fitted them on the drive with just a basic tool kit.

The following year, went in my 1996 Volvo 940 and was a bit anxious for the first few hours to Fishguard., but after a while moved the pace on a bit as only doing around 60mph. Drove straight from the Midlands to Fishguard stopping for 5 mins for a wee and a bit more fuel. Onto the ferry and arrived at Rosslare with car full and started the 4 hour drive to the West Coast near Abbeyfeale, County Limerick. Thankfully ran great except got a bit tail happy at a roundabout, as raining and car had cheap tyres. Came with the car, but can't complain as the 940 was only £250. Fitted Michelins on return.

Now only does local jobs. Lucky for me all work jobs have been within a 40 minute drive. 940 is my work van!

James.:thumbs_up:

Glad to hear all went smoothly Steve, E5/98RON is definitely the way to keep it running sweetly and economically. :thumbs_up:

I agree with the E5 / super unleaded recommendations. I took the decision years ago to use supermarket super unleaded in preference to brand name standard petrol. I filled up tonight with Sainsbury's super unleaded at £1.89 per litre. The Volvos seem to run better on it and I think it gains a slight MPG advantage.

For what it's worth my sister, who runs a Nissan Micra on a budget, has also started using super unleaded since the E10 debacle because she wasn't getting enough miles out of each fill with the new stuff. She definitely only does this for economics and she moans mightily about having to use super unleaded in a Micra.

If i use Sainsburys (now supplied by Esso) in my 760, i'm lucky to see 16mpg. If i use BP Ultimate, it's ~22mpg or a lot more on a run - a recent run gave me nearly 40mpg at motorway speeds unbelievably! :thumbs_up:

I mostly use Sainsbury's because it's cheaper and I often do my weekly food shop there. Funnily enough, my current next preference is Esso and I understand their super unleaded is supposed to still be ethanol free. I think I get slightly more MPG from the real Esso petrol but I've not measured it conclusively.

I also occasionally use Shell and Tesco but not often enough to have an opinion.

I never use BP after getting a dodgy tankful from them once which caused all sorts of problems including lighting the lambda lamp.

I normally do my food shopping at Sainsburys too, one of usually 3 stores depending what else i happen to be doing. Only one doesn't have a filling station but i usually have to detour to the BP for that one or pass it for at least one of the others that does.
For many years, Sainsburys were tied to BP (hence getting Nectar points for those years on BP as well) and have now switched allegiance to Esso (hence now getting Nectar points on Esso) and i never had any trouble either with Sainsburys or BP but Sainsburys was cheaper and gave the same economy.
About 2-3 (maybe more) years ago when they switched to Esso, my economy plummeted and not just on my 760 - my 827 Sterling was in regular use as well then and the economy on that dropped to ~22mpg as well from the usual 32-33mpg.
Then i twigged about Nectar points now being on Esso fuel so filled up with BP and the economy returned on both cars. To prove the point, i filled up with Esso and it dropped, then BP then Sainsburys, Esso and back to BP and since then have stuck with BP for all my cars - and lawnmower!

Seriously, the lawnmower will do 4 cuts of my back lawn on a tank of BP Ultimate but only 3 on anything else! You wouldn't think a 198cc, 3.5hp single cylinder carbed engine would show a difference but it does and as the tank on it is just under a litre, i don't mind filling it up to cut the grass!

In case you're wondering, yes, even the lawnmower dropped the economy when Sainsburys first switched to Esso and i hadn't realised!

You must have a dodgy Esso garage Dave :D my 940 loves Tesco and Esso 99 as they're ethanol free in the West Midlands but most of the UK still gets ethanol according to their website.

I used Tesco last fill up and I've done nearly 400 miles with a quarter of a tank left, I did a run down to Goodwood and back, definitely wasn't trying to get economy with my driving style and have done about 50 miles of town driving too so when I fill it up I'll see what the mpg was.

It will improve again once I track down the exhaust leak before the lambda sensor I imagine.

I really only get good mpg out of my Lawnmower on a long motorway run at a steady 55mph :teeth_smile::teeth_smile:

Rumble and holiday trips
 

Don't worry about a slight rumble when setting off with a fully loaded car. It is most probably due to the prop shaft not being fully aligned when torque is applied to it. Under ideal circumstances the uneven movement of a universal joint at an angle is cancelled out by the second UJ in the prop shaft. In reaction to your car setting off, the rear axle will rotate in its rubber suspension, causing the nose of the differential to rise. This will put one UJ under a greater angle than the other one, resulting in an uneven movement of the prop shaft. This is the slight rumble that you are feeling.
The UJ angle also increases when the rear axle is loaded. This added to the rising differential effect makes the rumble worse when loaded and not noticable when not loaded.
You can a) reduce the diff rising effect by replacing the torque rod rubbers, b) reduce the basic UJ angle by putting shims underneath the prop shaft bearing or by increasing the riding height of the rear axle, or c) just live with it if you run it mostly empty or light loaded.

Reading about your holidays it seems like every trip is an adventure. On the continent our holiday trips are usually much longer without any problems. I usually travel with tools and several spares just for ease of mind, as they always remain untouched. I'm always comforting myself with the thought that she has been running 15k miles every year for the last 20 years without major problems, so why would she just break down on this particular 2000 miles holiday trip?

Hi Rversteeg,

Many thanks for your thoughts on my possible transmission noise, and your explanation certainly makes sense. Tried her out today and could not replicate noise, so you have probably identified the cause.

I do have the transmission joints/bearings on my 'to do' check list as there is quite a bit of driveline shunt when going from P to R or R to D, I shall check out the UJ's at the same time.

Cheers
Steve