Hi, I'm helping out a friend with a couple of mysterious problems on her '82 240D, 24X,XXX miles. She has been on a continuous road trip for 3 years and I'm trying to help her continue along.

This will be difficult as I have very limited knowledge of the vehicle so I'm looking for suggestions that I can look further into the next time I have the chance to see the car.

First off, she's only had the car a couple of months but has been getting between 10 and 12 miles per gallon, on the highway!

The strangest part is that it doesn't smoke, leak, or smell like unburned fuel. So where is it all going?

Injectors? Timing? I don't know when the valves were last adjusted or what the chain stretch is but it seemed to run smoothly, nothing drastically wrong. I would think that whatever would cause such poor mileage would be very obvious but of course, I have not a clue.

Let me know if you guys have some ideas of what I could take a look at the next time I see the car.

The next mystery is that the car is going through a quart of oil every 2 - 3 hours on the highway.

Again, no smoke out the tailpipe, no wet underbody, no obvious sign of where in the world an entire quart of oil would go every 2 hours.

This thing is the Bermuda Triangle of fluids.

I barely know this person but was so confounded by these two issues that I just have to look into it, I'm extremely curious what in the world is going on.

So again, if anyone has some clues for what else I should be checking it would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

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1987 300SDL 167k
1992 Volvo 740 140k
1990 Volvo 740 250k
1989 Volvo 240 269k

Anyone want to trade an old Volvo for an '87 300sdl?