Newbie 245 owner looking for advice

Hello! I'm a long-time old car owner, but am new to the 240 series. Let me jump right in:

The windows are slow to go up/down. Can the regulators be cleaned up and re-greased? I used to do this easily with my Series Land Rover wipers, as the grease turned to wax over time... a little brake clean and grease returned them to as-new. But my '83 Audi, for instance, had slow windows due to the motors and even after rebuilding, they were lethargic.

Aside from IPD, are there genuine parts suppliers in the U.S.? Again, on the Land Rover example front, there are both US and UK suppliers that are quick to ship... I'd be open to a European source as well.

Are seats easy to refurb (with a hog ring puller)? I see IPD has a lower cushion option.

I'm actually after a new or as-new blue cloth seat cover set. Any ideas where to source?

On the used parts front... same question. Or do I just keep an eye on the parts section of this site? I'm after rear blue headrests, for instance, as well as the green fog light switch for a '91.

If anyone is new to '80s Audi, VW, Porsche - or any year Land Rover - I'm happy to reciprocate with a vast experience with parts suppliers and repairs. Again, not familiar with Volvo but am excited to learn.

Thanks!

The 240's are easy to work on and repair parts generally available. Plastic and other interior will be used. This forum's 'wanted' works very well.

Tasca is a Volvo retailer that specializes in new OEM parts. IDP has evolved to a lot of aftermarket parts. Volvo NA has a web site that sells directly through dealers wherever it is found in a national inventory.

This forum is a great source for those little detail questions.

Oh, man! Thanks. This is just what I was looking for... the Tasca site is really intuitive as well. I looked up, for instance, interior trim and see that you simply scroll over the numbered item for the price. Very cool.

I plan to assess "needs" vs. "wants" and will post in the wanted section.

Hah, I'll be interested to see if anybody has anything to say about the windows. I just always thought it was an inadvertent 'safety feature' - make the windows as slow as possible to avoid catching any snails or turtles or tectonic plates in them.

FCP Euro has some genuine parts and good quality aftermarket parts as well. Generally a bit better of a deal than IPD but missing some of the breadth of options and performance parts.

Aftermarket replacements for seat foam and vinyl seat skins are available new but I'm unaware of anyone making them for cloth yet - the cloth seats generally haven't failed much so far so "good" ones are still available used. Like-new ones would probably have to be commissioned from an upholsterer. You could perhaps save money by skinning the seats yourself and just having them sew up the replacements for you to install.

There's occasional aftermarket copies of the original plastic parts available but I don't know the quality.

Tasca is just a dealer chain based out of Rhode Island. My advice would be to test out your local dealer and see if the parts dept there is amenable to helping you out. If not, you can look up the parts you need yourself at www.gcp.se and providing your dealer the part numbers. This is the same catalog that dealers (at least my dealer) use. I have found Volvo's support of the "classics" is quite good and prices are fair. Some will mention that Volvo service part quality is not the same as it was in say, 1993, but times have changed now, haven't they?

These guys are your standard-type online parts suppliers that focus on European stuff:

fcpeuro.com
eeuroparts.com
Swedishcarparts.com

Also Voluparts in Atlanta specializes in used parts.

They say: "you meet the nicest people on a Honda bike."

Apparently, you meet the nicest people IN a Volvo. Thank you all. This has been really helpful and I welcome any other advice others may share.

vt240 said:

They say: "you meet the nicest people on a Honda bike."

Click to expand...

Put 100K miles on Goldwings.

Let me second the Voluparts link for used parts but they also carry an extensive inventory of new and OEM parts. Been doing business with them since I moved to Atlanta in 1978, a year after they opened a Volvo only recycling yard. Bill, the owner, does the internet stuff and really, really knows the old Volvos.

Bills’ brother or cousin use to be a customer of mine years ago. Nice folks

I have also used Voluparts for sourcing used parts. They were great to buy from. Some other sources that you want to include are:
VP autoparts. They sell and reproduce lots of parts for these cars. OEM quality
Skandix. Based in Germany they sell globally and have flat rate shipping to the US.
CVI Automotive. In Sweden they also reproduce parts and are OEM supplier.

GCP.se This is the company in Sweden where all the US Volvo dealers get their parts from for the older RWD cars. The dealers can order what is available and it will ship from Sweden if not in stock in the US. Slow but has come through for me every time. There are online catalogs of all the models but it's an online pdf so you have to do some page flipping virtually to find what you are looking for. Good luck with the car.