360 GLT eBay 140178606952

[workshopmanualman]

Hi,

this is the same one as the "365GLT" I posted about on Saturday. Seems a genuine seller, but when they say cills have rust, they really mean that they have gone completely. So do not assume - as I did - that this is a rare "barn find" where some petrol in the tank, new plugs and some odd bits, quick MOT and away you go.... Needs restoration, but would be ideal as a donor car. Believe me, it looks way better in the photographs than it really is. But good luck to the sellers, and to anybody that takes it on.


PIJ

[Ricatron]

thanks for passing the info on

looks a minter! ok so needs the sills doing but that is a great car and should not get distroyed.

i would love that

[workshopmanualman]

....how much would it cost to replace inner and outer sills, along with a bit of front and rear wings? On the nearside the sills have gone from the rear wheel through almost to the front wheel, whilst the offside isn't too far behind. Certainly not a case of a bit of surface rust - I put my hand in the nearside. The drivers door needs a new skin, although a kg of filler may resolve that one! I only ask as my car is now as bad, but mine is a lowly 340 1.4L, heading for second time around the clock [perhaps the third!] so not worth the effort. Surely at some point economically these cars are dead, even for an enthusiast? I've no idea as to the maximum value's of 360 GLT's, but £600 odd seems a reasonable figure for a really good car - certainly what I've bid to on the dreaded eBay. Bet the sills cost a minimum of £350 per side to replace professionally? I'm not knocking this particular car, as mechanically it has to be worth the £130 they wanted, just interested generally.

Phil

[Chris_C]

Sill's can be got from hadrian for 20 quid a side, so thats not the issue. Finding someone who has a clue?! SteveP had his saloon done one side a while ago, so he'd be able to give a clue as to price, but if/when I need to do it I think I'm going to enlist a few mates round with a couple of crates, I trust them welding with me over seeing

[workshopmanualman]

http://www.beeversautopanels.co.uk/ also do cheap Volvo stuff. I bought some sills a few weeks ago for £5 a side from eBay, so as you say the stuff is cheap, but it's the getting somebody to do it.

Mates + welding + beer...... you work for the HSE then?!


PIJ

[trabitom99]

I suppose it also depends on what the rest of the car is like? These cars are at an age now where you can be sure of having to invest a lot more than the buying price, if you want to have reasonably hassle-free motoring.

If the previous owner has serviced & treated it well, than maybe the shocks, brakes, clutch, tyres, exhaust etc will be in good condition, and "all" you'll have to invest in is the bodywork. Maybe a different car will be fine rust-wise but will have different problems like a ratty interior, or non-working electric gizmos, or saw its last service in the 1980's.

I don't know about the situation in the UK, but over here it's hard finding a clean GLT at all these days ...

Tom

[Chris_C]

Mates + welding + beer...... you work for the HSE then?!

Hahaha... you can get any current/ex students to work for beer We've just got some in the motorclub who also rock at welding, mainly because they like BL or Vaux stuff

[Jason B]

If you can't find mates to weld it then it could be pretty pricey. I was unlucky enough to have the saab fail mot on a sill and even at reasonable garage they still charged me £90 and that was for a patch not a sill!

[workshopmanualman]

I don't know about the situation in the UK, but over here it's hard finding a clean GLT at all these days ...

....here in the UK we can buy a 340 / 360 with up to 12 months MOT for between £100 and £200, run it for a year without any servicing or care whatsoever, then sell it as scrap for around £60. Works out now that using an old car for transport is actually about as cheap as running a half decent pushbike, but much more comfortable, if with a little less street cred. Bugger! That may explain why my car is so horrid!

And this also says a lot about public transport - I'd rather use a knackered 20 year old car for my 20 mile commute than a new bus or train.

I do actually like the DAF 66 / Volvo 300 design, but my 340 was a shed to begin with when I got it, is slightly better mechanically now [I like my tyres with tred on them, and my exhaust to actually consist of metal not ferrous oxide] but will fail the MOT due to rampant rust. I'll use it to further the life of another when the MOT runs out come December.


PIJ[/url][/quote]

[SteveP]

....here in the UK we can buy a 340 / 360 with up to 12 months MOT for between £100 and £200

I'd be very suprised, prices have gone up....

[petefarrell360]

Well, I'm lucky enough to have an Uncle who is a genius when it comes to metal work and fabrication. He's getting to know his way around 300's now! There are a lot of panels out there now, however we found the sills ok, but he had to fabricate a whole new bottom lip, as that isn't included. The rear arch sections are different, so one side will join to the sill and one won't, so something needs fabricating. All this adds to the time scale. Even with family rates, it's not been cheap.

Cheers for the heads up on the car. That's the problem with descriptions, one person may see and describe something differently to another, sometimes due to how they see things, other times due to a lack of knowledge. In this case, surface rust seems to be far more serious.

It still looks a nice car on top. People often dismiss an entire car on the grounds of it has rust in one place, so it must be everywhere else ready to come through. This isn't always true, having seen loads of 300's now, there often is no pattern, it comes down to what sort of life and storage they've had. My Grandmothers 340, garage all it's life, low mileage, but sadly garaged when wet sometimes and in a damp garage with no airflow, the sills and arches were very rusty, but other wise it's brilliant. None of the usual other rusting places are showing any signs.

Another car may be rusty all over the bodywork, i.e. the door tops under the windows etc, yet the main chassis and sills are perfect..... No rhyme or reason for it! I'd imagine this car would be ideal for someone who is keen to do the bodywork repairs. The reason we decided to repair my Grandmothers car was mainly down to the mechanical side of it being fine, and buying another 340 may have caused many more problems, underlying rust that isn't showing yet, mechanical problems etc. Better the devil you know sometimes!

As for patches on sills, I've seen some shocking work on some cars, some have literally had holes covered with the sticky underbody stonechip paint stuff! Others have had the friday afternoon weld treatment. 300 sills aren't the thickest things in the world to start with, and if they turn the welder up too much and there isn't much to weld to that is good, it's pretty pointless.

The worst thing is making a repair, then failing to protect it from rust, as the heat from welding will mean there is bare metal and places that need protecting, otherwise they will rust fast, and then a costly repair is useless in no time! Dinitrol or Waxoyl is the way forward in any cavities and areas where rust may occur or repairs have been carried out!

Tom says about the age of the cars meaning investing a bit more than the buying price. To be fair, it's pot luck, and it depends a lot on how the car has been treated and how well it's been serviced in the past. But yes, I look at any vehicle, knowing it probably needs something doing! Tyres are always high on the priority list, people love to make their way about on tyres that are cheap and dangerous to save a few pennies, not my idea of fun, especially when it's all that keeps you in touch with the road!

Pete

[trabitom99]

....here in the UK we can buy a 340 / 360 with up to 12 months MOT for between £100 and £200, run it for a year without any servicing or care whatsoever, then sell it as scrap for around £60 ...

... my 340 was a shed to begin with when I got it, is slightly better mechanically now [I like my tyres with tred on them, and my exhaust to actually consist of metal not ferrous oxide] but will fail the MOT due to rampant rust

If you're not so picky about which 300 you want to run, then I suppose it's much easier to find a car. However, if you're looking out for a particular engine / model / colour / spec, or maybe a Mk1 or early Mk2 then it can be quite a long wait until the "right" one comes along. I guess it's as Pete says, a lot of it is just pot luck.

350 pounds for a professionally replaced sill is a lot, but an exhaust middle and back box for a 360, and a set of 4 good new tyres costs about the same, even if you fit them yourself. I tend to think one of the best things about a used car is a good service history - all that money which the previous owner has invested, you're getting for a fraction of the price!

The cheapest way of motoring is always buying an old car, investing nothing, scrapping it, then get another one. But I have to admit that's not quite my cup of tea anymore

<edit>BTW, thanks for posting a description of the car here. There's nothing more annoying than travelling hundreds of miles to view a car which has just been tarted up for the photos ...</edit>

Tom

[workshopmanualman]

Gosh,

I hope I've not misled anybody here. The Volvo 360 on eBay is clean, and a genuine sale of sorts. It's just that the photographer has used an oldish photograph, and failed to show the problem areas. The top half is as clean as that.... but there isn't much of it left beneath the door line is all. The price is moving up, but I'm guessing that whoever buys it may knock the price back when they go to collect.

Nope, I'm not one for scrapping cars either. I like my 340, and to be honest in the recent floods it was one of the few cars that kept going. It was worth the purchase price for that day alone. I'm thinking that the floods may have something to do with the state of my sills. I'd like to fix it, but in reality it's knackered. To be fair, it just got though the MOT last time, straight from a scrap yard, so in one sense I have kept it alive for another year.

And thanks for mentioning the welding problem. A chap here has offered to weld new sills over the top of my old ones. Sounded like a bodge job from the off, and seems like it may well be. I'm not one for bodge jobs. Cheap I may be, but a bodger not.

Prices seem funny. Certainly good 360's are going up, but the odd few do get sold for £200, and then there was that guy who sold two 340's with MOT's for £400. A dealer in Farnham sold a 360 with warranty and 12 months ticket for £495.

I do think that 300 series owners may well have the last laugh in terms of classic car ownership. 340's are dirt cheap to run - for the past year mine has cost 20p per mile, even with a new exhaust, tyres etc.. 360's are ignored by the motoring press, yet compare well in terms of day-to-day performance to XR3i / Golf GTi etc..

Sorry for being windy, but I'm in work avoidance mode just trying to look busy.


PIJ

[workshopmanualman]

Along with a ratty old Volvo 340, I've got a Honda Jazz that I bought new. Today I had it serviced - basic, bog standard annual service; oil, filters etc.. Nothing wrong with the car. I'm painting a picture here..... bill came in at £700. For a routine service. Labour was near £400.

This week I've also been offered a 1990 Volvo 340 with 43,000 miles up, full service history for £450. Price seemed high, so I was pondering the purchase, and trying to knock some ££££'s off. However, after getting my Honda back the Volvo seems a bargain!

Furthermore, repairing the sills on my rat 340, that is oddly mechanically fine and has done 7,000 miles this year no worries [well, only minor ones], also seems cheap in comparison......

Life is hard, then you die!