VOLVO 240 GL
As I briefly mentioned last month, the Volvo recently secured its MOT certificate at the first time of asking. That hasn’t happened in my ownership, nor did it in the previous custodian’s. Not since 2009, in fact. And I’m a little bit proud of its general shabbiness; it’s basically a metal incarnation of me – we’re split by just five months, too.
It’s not a clean bill of health, mind. A steering gaiter needs replacing sooner rather than later and the diff continues to cause problems. It protests movement with a clunk and has always leaked, despite that being sorted a couple of years ago by the same firm that ‘fixed’ the handbrake and couldn’t diagnose the dodgy idle. So now a replacement diff is on the list, should anyone know of a good one – Volvo having one stashed away in its giant parts warehouse in Gothenburg seems unlikely.
Progress of sorts has been made on the peeling roof. By which I mean I uploaded it to one of those quote websites and had two come back that I haven’t followed up on. It needs doing but isn’t urgent, and I quite like its battered, used state. So I keep telling myself, anyway.
Tidying it and the rest of the car has been on my mind lately, though, prompted in no small part by our glorious government’s hard-balling about widening the Congestion Charge zone out to the North Circular to recoup COVID19 losses. That would be £15 every time I fire it up, and come October a further £12.50 because it’s not quite old enough for the ULEZ exemption. Not a viable prospect. Thoughts turned to chopping it in for an older model, but it just fits our family like an old slipper.
Talking of repairing emissions, an email from Chrome Carbon and founder Julien Lescure intrigued me. Being the lefty liberal I am, offsetting my classic’s carbon impact for a few quid a month seems a good idea, to go with the renewable, reusable and recyclable stuff all over our flat. Now, for £7 a month, trees are being planted and projects helped by me and my car (see chromecarbon.cc).
I still haven’t checked where that screw fell from into the footwell, but lockdown mk2 means time will be found for that and to hopefully replace the door seals. The extra miles lately to and from shoots and cramming in pre-lockdown family visits also revealed the seats to be on the way out, if the odd pains are anything to go by – not that there’s much I can easily do about that.