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240 How far will you take your daily driver 240 from home?

How far will you drive your 240 daily from home?


  • Total voters
    87
  • Poll closed .

towerymt

the real Towery
Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Location
VA, USA
If you still daily drive a 240, it's probably got a few miles on it by now. Mine just crossed 246,000 recently after the second ~1,000 mile round trip in a month.

I've had periods of time where it seems like something is acting up every week, but lately I haven't had any major issues (intermittent e-fan relay causing a few minor boil-overs not withstanding), but lately the car has been great, so I didn't really hesitate to drive it 510 miles to Mountain Meet last month or 520 miles to New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend.

I carry a few spares and hope for the best...

various hoses, radiator, etc. spare oil feed line, too.
crank pulley / bolt / gear. timing belt.
coil / wires / cap / rotor
5qt oil / 2 gal water
crank position sensor
fuel pump relay / fuses / wire
head gasket set

(If your only 240 is a race / modified / weekend car that doesn't see daily use, then I expect the limit to be lower......mainly wondering about the state of 240 daily drivers, for those who haven't given up on them for daily transportation)
 
Not a 240 but I would take my 92 740 wagon anywhere. I put 30k miles on it in a year. I was putting on upwards of 600 miles a week when I was commuting to school. I don't think I would be scared to bring it from CT to Florida or somewhere far like that. I'm about to hit 229,000 with it and its a regina car totally stock but well maintained.
 
I’ve taken my 86 240 across the country a few times, and deep into the wilderness frequently. It’s only got 90K miles on it and fresh wiring harnesses. It’s had some frustrating drive ability issues before but it’s never left me stranded. I also carry some spare parts, most LH sensors and relays. I also carry some 20ft 16ga alligator clip jumpers. Those can come in handy if you need to jump the fuel pump.
 
I put a lot of effort into my '79 242 to be able to drive it anywhere, I just have a small tool kit and no spare parts in the car. Part of my confidence comes from not having K Jet anymore and spending a bunch of time tuning the Megasquirt. It needs almost no sensors to run. Also a major factor is it is a manual car, so you can overcome a lotta problems with the gas pedal haha.

The main issue I would have with a 500 mile trip is the seats, the lumbar is broken and it makes you slouch in the seat. No power steering/wide tires, and cable actuated clutch gets old after an hour or so. M45 4 speed trans, so the exhaust that only has a resonator in it is screaming at 75 mph. I'd say 2 hours is about as far as I would want to go before an extended break.

I guess I do keep a few extra bulbs in the car and my laptop though. No idea how many miles are on the car because the odometer was broken when I got it and I haven't bothered to fix it yet. That being said, I wouldn't drive my 78 K Jet car more than 20 miles from home. And that is about 19 miles too far before it craps out again.
 
Is there a list of all the hoses somewhere? Looking to do maintenance on my car and replace all the old rubber hoses... It's a 244 B23A

If you still daily drive a 240, it's probably got a few miles on it by now. Mine just crossed 246,000 recently after the second ~1,000 mile round trip in a month.

I've had periods of time where it seems like something is acting up every week, but lately I haven't had any major issues (intermittent e-fan relay causing a few minor boil-overs not withstanding), but lately the car has been great, so I didn't really hesitate to drive it 510 miles to Mountain Meet last month or 520 miles to New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend.

I carry a few spares and hope for the best...

various hoses, radiator, etc. spare oil feed line, too.
crank pulley / bolt / gear. timing belt.
coil / wires / cap / rotor
5qt oil / 2 gal water
crank position sensor
fuel pump relay / fuses / wire
head gasket set

(If your only 240 is a race / modified / weekend car that doesn't see daily use, then I expect the limit to be lower......mainly wondering about the state of 240 daily drivers, for those who haven't given up on them for daily transportation)
 
At the moment, not that far away.. Needs alignment, drive shaft vibration, exhaust is broken, windshield leaks.. It's still super reliable and mpg is OK-ish, it's just not comfortable and don't want to cause more wear than needed.
Before these issues were present I'd use it for trips of a couple 100 miles easily.
I'm slacking with fixing these issues, should be fixed soon.
 
I generally drive my car everywhere I want to go. I do around 25k miles per year in my 940.

Sold my 240 and my 940 has around 220k miles on the clock. It usually passes annual inspection with flying colours and I do quite a bit of preventive maintenance myself.
I usually keep my small toolbox with all my hand tools in the trunk whenever I go somewhere far.
I usually don't really carry any spares except bulbs, a fuel relay and oil / coolant.

The farthest I've been in both my 240 and 940 is the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, which was 3500 miles round trip in total from Austria.

No hiccups except the middle silencer pipe on my 940 broke on the highway doing around 80mph near Amsterdam going home.
I was able to easily fix it within 30 minutes after a visit to a hardware store getting some hoseclamps and drinking a beer. :cheers:
Beer can fix held up for a month until I finally got a new silencer :lol:
 

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We have a product called Muffler Bandage which once allowed me to continue a 2000 mile round trip 800 miles from home many years ago. Now the lessons that are tough to learn are to do an under-car inspection and check the repair record book for the last alternator brush and brake pad replacements before heading far out of town.

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The one thing that I love on a long trip is the occasional smell of diesel. It is one odor I know doesn't get produced by my car.
 
I've been known to take trips longer than 500 miles in my two old Volvos. Sometimes immediately after slapping them together from a collection of junkyard and eBay parts (I only put about 200 shakedown miles on the LS swapped wagon before driving it 600 miles to Mountain Meet this year).

I really haven't had any serious issues over the years.

Forst trip down to SE I had the throwout bearing seize up partway through Alabama, so I drove it the rest of the way to Kenny's house without using the clutch pedal more than a couple of times. Bought a part at a store along the way, swapped it in Kenny's driveway in a couple of hours and still made it to the drag strip that evening.

The only other issue that I can think of was the alternator dying in the PV a couple of years ago on the way back from Mountain Meet. Something went wrong inside it and it started pumping out 18, 19 volts. I assumed that would fry things, so I turned on all the electrical items the car has (admittedly, not much in a PV) and kept driving. After an hour or so, the alternator died from cranking out continuous max amps, so I turned everything off and kept watching the voltmeter slooooowly drop. It clearly wasn't going to make it the whole remaining 6 - 7 hours back to St. Louis. So I stopped by a Wal Mart outside of Nashville (parked pointing downhill) and bought the cheapest battery they had ($60-ish), bump started it still using the old battery, and just kept driving. I was curious how far it would make it. The voltmeter dropped down, down. 11, 10, 9, 8. Car kept on running great. Somewhere below 7 volts (about as low as the gauge reads) the OD kicked off. Then, finally, with the gauge bottomed out the gs gauge finally started to act wonky. I didn't want to fix it on the shoulder, so I pulled off on a rural exit somewhere in Illinois and stuck the new battery in. Made it back to St. Louis with 12 volts still showing.
 
I've been commuting from Central NH to Boston 3-4 days a week in my '79 for a few months. 200 miles a day. Will garage once winter approaches. I actually trust the k-jet more than some LH cars I've driven - gave it an almost complete stage zero and it starts every time...
 
Typically I try not to exceed more than 300-350 miles round trip over the last 2 years because of all the maintenance my 244 has needed. But prior to that, I’ve put about 800 miles in one trip.
The amount of noise and lack of being able to blast along with traffic were my biggest reasons for not taking her on long trips.

However, with all the maintenance it should be ready for road trips again next year when she comes out of winter storage.
 
We have a product called Muffler Bandage which once allowed me to continue a 2000 mile round trip 800 miles from home many years ago. Now the lessons that are tough to learn are to do an under-car inspection and check the repair record book for the last alternator brush and brake pad replacements before heading far out of town.

Ha! This happened on a trip about 6 years ago. I had SS welding rods that I use to tie everything together in place and drive the remaining 400 or so miles back home become getting a new cat back exhaust.
 
I usually put at least 1000mi a month on my '82 turbo. I've been stranded by it like three times this year, but every time was close to home. I drove it 600mi a couple months ago and, other than the overdrive committing suicide again, it was fine.
 
Did about 440 miles roundtrip to iPd and back in the 245 last May. Other than the usual gas needs, car did fine. I probably would've been fine last year, but, since I'd just put the car back on the road with less than 25 miles shakedown time, I didn't want to chance it.

-J
 
Last major trip in my 89 240 was NYC to SC. I drive it on weekends every now and then. Just hit 66,000. I daily drive my 06 Odyssey. Drove it Quebec, Montreal, Denver a few times, Fl. more times than I can remember. Going on 260,000. replaced the transmission once. That was my fault, towing with a tranny cooler.
 
I'll drive my 85 740 anywhere. Run up to Deer Park WA and back (400 miles) a few times a year, drove it from TX to MT last year (2k miles) Drive it to Missoula (120 mile round trip) a couple times a month. I have owned it 12 years, know every inch of it, able to fix pretty much anything. Reminds me, been a while since I've had it up in the air and looked at things. Been driving it less lately as the truck seems to be preferred, but no reason I can't drive the Volvo. Motor has 25K on it maybe, trans has 5k maybe
 
Well the last couple of years has seen a complete slowdown of how much and how far I drive. That said my car just needs a bit of maintenance and service like an alignment. Then I'd trust it for a long trip. The furthest I've driven it was the Poconos, Carlisle, and Delaware. But I'd trust it for further if I needed to. This is the 93 wagon. The 82 turbo I keep close to home nowadays.
 
I generally take my 240 once a month from Chicago back to Minnesota, just shy of a 1000 miles round trip, not including the miles I put on while I'm back. Haven't had an issue yet, but still keep my AAA membership active just in case.

I've been doing the same with my 740 recently, although I'm not as confident with that yet, as I haven't had a chance to go through it as thoroughly.
 
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