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-   -   Stunning 240 estate (https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=319022)

Othen Dec 27th, 2021 07:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by loki_the_glt (Post 2762888)
It's certainly not original. A 1989 model with a B230K engine (as evinced by the mass of plumbing looping over the cam-box cover) shoud have a 5-speed manual gearbox.

Methinks someone is pulling a fast one. However, the new owner may surface on the forum and enlighten us all.

I was scanning through the previous correspondence before Bob's first walk this morn and noticed this one that Loki had spotted back in August.

I notice the current eBay ad says the motor car is a 4 speed manual, but as Alf says, a 1989 MY motor car should have had a 5 speeder fitted (from memory that change was from the 1984 MY).

I also note from the eBay photos that the headlamp wipers are missing - something Dave noticed some months ago. Back in August the seller claimed they had been removed to fit new headlamps but came with the motor car.

This all all too much for a coincidence: I'm certain this is the same motor car being advertised on eBay as the one being hawked here on the forum (at £9,000) back in August. I remember querying the price at the time. I'm pretty sure it is the same seller as well because the rubric is very similar in both cases.

The only changes have been the deletion of the private number plate and a reduction from £9,000 to a starting price of £3,500 - and perhaps some swallowed pride on the part of the seller.

I'm wondering whether this motor car will get any bids at £3,500 during the winter holiday week (the auction ends on New Year's day). It is a cooking DL with a few bits missing, not original, only a 4 speeder, not particularly low mileage and otherwise unremarkable in every way. The seller might have done better to start the auction at a lower price and maybe bidding would have then got to 3 grand.

We'll see.

:-)

Laird Scooby Dec 27th, 2021 14:14

The mass of plumbing Alf refers to looks suspiciously like a Pulse-Air system - a weird device that squirts air into the exhaust manifold to make the emissions seem cleaner than they really are.

The 4-speed box is also a puzzle. I know back in 88/89 i occasionally used a 240DL estate (83/84 A reg) and that had a 5-speed box as standard. Doesn't make sense for a 5 year newer car to only have a 4-speed as standard unless someone killed the 5-speeder (or used it in another car) and just fitted a 4-speed to keep this one mobile.

Too many things don't ring true on this car. :nah:

XC90Mk1 Dec 27th, 2021 14:23

It’s very difficult to come on and criticise someone’s listing. I know enough about LS (never met him) to know that he will have meant all this with the best of intentions.

To be fair tot the OP advertising this at 9k is very very understandable. Type 960 classic car into google and a 960 with 70,000 miles in presentable (not good) condition returns in Hampshire at £11,000.

There is a host of other 960 on there and I can tell you most of them have been on since I started looking around in March 2020. The green K ref at £6,750 really does appear to be the real deal and I think in reality if advertised at £6,750 in March 20 and accepting an offer may have moved. But it was advertised at £8k!

I am seeing 728i in good condition at £7,000, P38 range rovers at astronomical prices and 960s at £8-11k. But what the public don’t understand is that I have watched them from March 2020!!!

Then a 728i goes up for £3,500 and it’s gone a week later.

All we have now are sites like EBay, auto trader and Cars and classics with 728s, P38 and 960s all at £8,000 plus so I totally understand people pricing their vehicles like that however they need to understand that you may have to wait 18months to sell it (and in liklyhood it won’t go).

It’s a pretty distorted market out there at the moment and pretty hard.

kiloran Dec 27th, 2021 14:34

Also noticeable that cars are more expensive down south, and always have been.

Bournemouth/Poole motors typically more expensive than Portsmouth, with Southampton somewhere in the middle. It's been that way as long as I've been buying cars (late 80s onwards). You only start to get bargains way out west or from Birmingham north.

We're currently looking for an EV and they're getting on for 20% cheaper north of the border - of course then there's the issue of getting it back home with a 70 mile motorway range! That's an awful lot of Costa and MaccyD breaks :)

Laird Scooby Dec 27th, 2021 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by kiloran (Post 2795795)
Also noticeable that cars are more expensive down south, and always have been.

Bournemouth/Poole motors typically more expensive than Portsmouth, with Southampton somewhere in the middle. It's been that way as long as I've been buying cars (late 80s onwards). You only start to get bargains way out west or from Birmingham north.

We're currently looking for an EV and they're getting on for 20% cheaper north of the border - of course then there's the issue of getting it back home with a 70 mile motorway range! That's an awful lot of Costa and MaccyD breaks :)

There are several reasons for the anomaly of bornemouth cars being dearer than Portsmouth cars. First and most obvious is that Bournemouth is a popular place for retirees with a high disposable income. This normally means there are a lot of 2-3 year old trade-ins in good condition with low mileage. This pushes up the secondhand value of used cars in the area. Sadly that also attracts the less scrupulous dealers from Southampton to "punt out a lemon" via the trade in Bournemouth and while it may look good, it's actually shot to bits mechanically. Often these cars are bought by retirees that only do a few hundred miles a year so by the time the lemon gives up the ghost, it is long out of any warranty period.

Portsmouth on the other hand tends to be a bit more transparent with cars although there are less than scrupulous dealers there too. Given the historical connection to London (many housing estates were built to cope with London overspill) many rogue cars come from London with low mileage (because you can't do many miles a year crawling along at 8mph in a perpetual traffic jam!) and again are "punted out" to the trade. They are then sold to the public with a limited warranty because the traders know (or at least suspect) they will have problems.
Southampton is a mix of the two with a few of its own "intricacies" shall we say.

I'm sure Alan you know all of this living where you do, this was more for the benefit of those on here that haven't "enjoyed" living in that area.

You're spot-on about cars north of the border being cheaper. About 5 years ago a friend of mine wanted a Lexus LS430. He lived in Cambridge (still does as far as i know) and most local cars to him (when i say local i mean anything up to about 100 miles radius) were in the region of £3-3.5k for the one he wanted.
Including bus, train, taxi and air fares to Glasgow and the fuel home (at an average of 36mpg! :err: ) to Cambridge, the one he bought from just outside Glasgow came in at less than £2k - he sold it a couple of years later for about £2.5k if memory serves and that was with a badly dented fron wing after going green-laning with his brothers! His brothers were in Land-Rovers and he decided the Lexus on high suspension setting was good enough to follow. The dry stone wall that jumped out and hit his front wing thought otherwise though!
Had it not had the body damage (or if he'd fixed it and kept quiet) he would easily have got £3k+ for it locally.

As for buying an EV from Scotland and driving home, do they really only have a 70 mile motorway range? :err: :thinking:

I'd guess you'd spend more on Costa, Maccy-Ds, Burger King, Starbucks etc on the way back than you'd save, that's assuming the battery is in good enough condition to give the full range and that the chargers were working and available at each service stop. Then there's the time factor. I don't know how long it would need to charge to get the next 70 miles but i used to reckon on Glasgow (or Edinburgh) being ~400 miles to Cadnam and that used to take me 10-12 hours near enough non-stop (except for "Comfort breaks" and a bit of a feed at some point) if the roads were ok.
With a 70 mile range, that means at least 5 charging breaks, even if each is only an hour that makes it 15-17 hours, if it charges longer then obviously that increases. No idea on charging cost but you can bet your life motorway service station charging points will charge (monetarily) at a premium so add that on to overpriced coffee and food every hour or so and suddenly it's a lot cheaper (and less stressful) to run a V12 Jag for the same journey and only have sensible stops. Maybe a V12 Jag is an exaggeration but you get the idea.

Of course, if the range is more sensible like 170 miles it blows my calculations out of the water but probably not by much. It's nearly 3 hours travel time so would be more in line with a sensible break time that you'd be wise to take if driving a "normal" car.

Each to their own and all that but maybe it would be more cost effective to buy a BEV from the midlands or slightly north or even from the deepest depths of Cornwall - again these places are historically cheaper than the south of England but i think the savings would once again be marginal.

kiloran Dec 27th, 2021 23:43

I passed on a really cheap Nissan Leaf for just this reason Dave. Went for about £2k less than it would down here but it was in proper Scotland (north of Inverness) so about 600 miles away! Realistically on an 8yo EV you're going to get about 70 miles per charge in winter on a motorway run. The EVs of that era are little more than city cars - and they're limited to 83mph.
Of course the sensible thing to do would have been to get someone inspect it on my behalf and then get it trailered but even that would have been around £500 all in, eroding the savings somewhat. A few years back I could fly Southampton to Inverness for something like £40 return (Flybe). Did a few whisky/foodie tours that way, even considered moving there whilst still working down south. I know a few who did twice weekly commutes on that route - cheaper than the train to London

SwedishScotsman Dec 28th, 2021 00:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rikvdub (Post 2762785)
Sorry it’s sold! And that just proves the rest wrong as I’ve just received the email confirmation.

Caveat venditor!!!!

I’d be very very cautious if you are contacted by a prospective buyer claiming they are willing to pay close to asking price and want to ship it. I don’t have enough info to make a judgment in this instance but I’ve seen it before and they usually claim the buyer is working away but they have an agent or a shipper will deal on his/ her behalf and promise to even pay more than asking price etc. For fun I once entertained a nice such Nigerian fella with various emails back and forth to waste his time as much as I possibly could.

Othen Dec 28th, 2021 07:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by SwedishScotsman (Post 2795911)
Caveat venditor!!!!

I’d be very very cautious if you are contacted by a prospective buyer claiming they are willing to pay close to asking price and want to ship it. I don’t have enough info to make a judgment in this instance but I’ve seen it before and they usually claim the buyer is working away but they have an agent or a shipper will deal on his/ her behalf and promise to even pay more than asking price etc. For fun I once entertained a nice such Nigerian fella with various emails back and forth to waste his time as much as I possibly could.

Now that is an interesting possibility I hadn't considered - thank you for bringing it up.

Whenever I've advertised a motorcycle I've had an obvious spoof email offering to pay the full price... you know the rest. Now I'm wondering whether the seller in this case actually fell for the con trick back in August, is now not only out of pocket for the shipping fees but has also realised his motor car is worth nowhere near the £9 grand he was asking then? In that case he may be trying desperately to cut his losses with a no-reserve auction starting at £3,500.

All of a sudden I feel a bit sorry for the seller (but then I remember how rude he was to Dave back in August).

This is an interesting twist. I'm not sure the motor car is even going to get an opening bid, so we may well see if for sale a few more times.

Alan

Othen Dec 28th, 2021 08:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by XC90Mk1 (Post 2795792)
It’s very difficult to come on and criticise someone’s listing. I know enough about LS (never met him) to know that he will have meant all this with the best of intentions.

To be fair tot the OP advertising this at 9k is very very understandable. Type 960 classic car into google and a 960 with 70,000 miles in presentable (not good) condition returns in Hampshire at £11,000.

There is a host of other 960 on there and I can tell you most of them have been on since I started looking around in March 2020. The green K ref at £6,750 really does appear to be the real deal and I think in reality if advertised at £6,750 in March 20 and accepting an offer may have moved. But it was advertised at £8k!

I am seeing 728i in good condition at £7,000, P38 range rovers at astronomical prices and 960s at £8-11k. But what the public don’t understand is that I have watched them from March 2020!!!

Then a 728i goes up for £3,500 and it’s gone a week later.

All we have now are sites like EBay, auto trader and Cars and classics with 728s, P38 and 960s all at £8,000 plus so I totally understand people pricing their vehicles like that however they need to understand that you may have to wait 18months to sell it (and in liklyhood it won’t go).

It’s a pretty distorted market out there at the moment and pretty hard.

Thank you for that. I also spend some time monitoring prices (mostly motorcycles, but also Volvo 240s - I know, I should get out more) on auction sites such as eBay and C&C. In my opinion public auctions are the acid test of real values (although there are some correspondents to this forum that disagree).

In my recent experience I see lots of Volvo 240 motor cars advertised at high prices, or with high starting prices or reserves that just do not sell. They get advertised again and again and each time lose a little credibility. Here is a good example:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/304278261...53.m1438.l2649

... it is a nice enough motor car, near the top of the good cars on private sale and so probably worth £4,500 of most people's money. This is the fourth time through the eBay mill on a couple of months, the first time it reached £5,100, the second £5,700, third £6,100 (on 15 Dec) - now it is at £4,700. At each auction the motor car fails to reach its reserve price in spite of some obvious shill bidding.

The point is sellers may ask any price they like, but if it is well above the market value then it won't sell. I rather suspect this has happened with Rikvdub's motor car, it was never worth £9,000, and may well not be worth £3,500 - the market will decide.

Best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2022.

Alan

Othen Dec 28th, 2021 09:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby (Post 2795790)
The mass of plumbing Alf refers to looks suspiciously like a Pulse-Air system - a weird device that squirts air into the exhaust manifold to make the emissions seem cleaner than they really are.

The 4-speed box is also a puzzle. I know back in 88/89 i occasionally used a 240DL estate (83/84 A reg) and that had a 5-speed box as standard. Doesn't make sense for a 5 year newer car to only have a 4-speed as standard unless someone killed the 5-speeder (or used it in another car) and just fitted a 4-speed to keep this one mobile.

Too many things don't ring true on this car. :nah:

I don't know anything about the plumbing stuff Dave, but the 4 speed manual gearbox is confusing. As far as I can tell Volvo started fitting the 5 speeder for MY 1984, now there may well have been some unsold ones hanging over until 1985, but surely not until 1989? I just can't work this one out - wouldn't other bits (like the speedo drive) be different between a 4 and 5 speeder?

Didn't Volvo get rid of the DL model designation before 1989, or have I misremembered that?

I agree, there is something not quite right about this motor car.

Alan


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