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I recently picked up a 900, having spent the past 10 years maintaining my three other Saabs, all 9-5s. My 900 is an ’87 8V naturally aspirated, manual trans. Absolute joy to drive, but it does have it’s quirks. And being new to 900’s I need some help.
First thing is that there is a more than slight odor of gas when I first enter the car in the morning. Not strong enough to require rolling down the window, but it’s noticeable. It’s there.
The real problem is with the first cold start in the morning, which I’ve read is a common problem with this model. The car turns over strong and catches right away. Idle ramps up and holds nicely at around 1300. After letting it run for a couple minutes I start to back out the driveway. As I hit the gas to go, the car starts to buck and hesitate, the idle drops and jumps erratically between 500 and 1K. I have to keep pumping the gas to keep it from stalling. So there I go down the street doing the polka until I reach the first stop sign at which point the car stalls and dies. Upon trying to restart it, I have to crank and crank the engine. After four or five tries, the engine finally catches and I’m on my way again. After that, the car runs smoothly for the rest of day without any hesitation whatsoever! Idle at stop remains at about 800. It’s just that first cold start and stalling at the first stop that’s the problem.
The one way to work around this is simply to let the car warm up all the way to where the temperature needle on the dash actually moves into the warm area. That can take 5 or 6 minutes. During that time, the high idle does eventually self-adjust down to 800 on its own when the engine warms up. This just isn’t the kind of car to drive if you need to get somewhere quick.
The PO, who only had this car for less than a year, informed me about the start up problem before I bought it. And judging by the service records he gave me, the owner before him was having the same problem worked on. Things he did to try to fix this prior to selling all fall in line with what I read to do on the Saab forums: new spark plugs, new O2 sensor, new fuel filter, replaced fuel regulator, replaced aux air valve, and replaced cold start valve. A few days after I brought it home I replaced all the vacuum hoses. All tolled, none of this has worked. Any ideas?
posted by 64.85.23...
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