Originally Posted by soreballz
Probably. I daily drove it for 8 years and 150k+ miles before retiring it with well over 300k miles. I regularly drove 4-5 hours one way for work, and made several 1500 mile runs between East TX and CA in it. It was fiiiiine. No earplugs needed, I could even drive without the stereo on, and my passengers had no trouble sleeping. Sure, summers without a/c sucked, but that’s my only complaint. Well, that, and the leaky sunroof. It really ruined sunroof cars for me.
My current daily is a ‘96 Ranger. It’s got all sorts of awful squeaks and rattles. If it didn’t have a stereo, I wouldn’t have my sanity. I’ve never been spoiled by daily driving a well made, newish car. I suppose I’m comparing my decent 240 to other examples of the same car, and other vehicles of that era, while you’re comparing them to better, newer cars that aren’t 80s/90s economy sports cars. It’s funny, now that I think about it, the last person who told me my car was loud in the cabin daily drives a 2nd gen GS400. If I daily drove a Lexus, I might be inclined to agree with you. Perspective is everything.
I wasn’t speaking specifically to anyone here. It’s a topic I’ve seen brought up elsewhere recently, as well. I saw it mentioned here and it got me thinking.
It’s entirely possible that I’m seeing things through some slightly rose colored glasses, as it’s been sitting for nearly 5 years and I miss driving it in a big way.
But as far as I can recall, squeaks and rattles were never much of an issue for me in that car. I mean, it was quite rough and noisy on my road, but I live on a pretty fucked up farm road that isn’t really low car friendly. And brick roads were a nightmarish scene of “holy shit is my car falling apart?” But on normal roads or the highway, it was perfectly tolerable.
Squeaks and rattles were certainly a problem in some other s13s I drove, fastbacks especially. Some of those were track/drift cars, others were salvage title shit box street cars. Mine wasn’t the nicest s-chassis around, far from it, but in terms of comfort, it really was heaps better than many others I’ve been around. It’s those other sort of cars I’ve always assumed give the 240 it’s rep as a rattlebox. I just assumed anyone who felt that way hadn’t driven a nice example of one. But, per the two of you, I guess that’s not necessarily the case.
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