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Just for anorak interest I looked up the VIN code for you.
Specification for Saab 9000 VIN: YS3CD65U2V1032166
Model year 1997
Model series CS
Body style 5-door CS
Airbags Driver and passenger
Engine B234E (2.3l light-pressure turbo)
Transmission 5-speed manual
Built at Line A, Trollhattan, Sweden
So at least the car is as described. The light pressure Turbo is very economical but has a turbo that is effectively detuned (for petrol heads, this means the Turbo is set to only work at base boost) although if you are after a bit more grunt, then it can easily be converted with a second hand ECU (engine management box) and some hoses - I did this myself on one of my previous cars and it took about an hour.
The good thing about a light pressure turbo (or LPT as we say) is that it is less likley to have been thrashed or raced around and the engine will have had an easier life.It is also cheaper on insurance too.
156K is a high mileage for most cars but I think anyone on this board would agree with me that 156K is no biggie for the 9000 engine, as long as regularly serviced.
If it hasn't, although the engine internals are strong as an ox, you may find the following:
Headgasket needs replacing
Engine mounts need replacing
Heater core leaking
Fan belt, tensioner, pulleys need replacing
Steering rack?
Fuel pump, fuel filter
All fluids would need replacing (Engine, gearbox, power steering, clutch, brake fluid)
Here's an element from a buyer's guide that I thought would help you?:
The 9000 range when new was held in high regard as an executive model from a prestige car maker. As such, the 9000 can be fitted with a host of complex optional equipment. Many cars will have been subject to loving care and sympathetic driving but others will have been soundly thrashed. Sorting the tired cars from better examples may seem daunting but need not be as difficult as expected, even for the novice.
One very good but not infallible indicator of a car's general condition is the state of the interior. Clean, unscuffed seat facings and door cards usually point to the fastidious owner who will have been equally attentive to servicing. Check the toolkit (located on the driver’s side of the luggage boot) is complete - it should be there on a car with good service history. If it isn't, worry about the competence of anyone who hasn't even the basic kit that ships with the car or failed to replace it after emergency use.
Rust should not be a serious worry and checking is easy. Much of this is common sense - avoid anything with really tatty bodywork: stone chips are a sign of honest work but rust spells neglect and possible poor quality body repair work after an accident. Earlier pre-1990 cars can suffer from serious rust in the roof panel, especially if a sliding sunroof is fitted, so check carefully for any signs of bubbling or blistering because an effective repair is time-consuming, ergo expensive. . Doors on pre CS models too can suffer to the point that the bottoms can resemble lace curtains. This is often due to water being trapped in the door bottoms, sometimes due to blocked drain holes. Repair is possible but please note that the drillings for the fasteners for the body mouldings vary between considerably between variants and check strap design varies if used doors are to be acquired! This means that later CS doors can’t be fitted easily to flat front models without work.
Headlamp lenses are not cheap but are at least available although second-hand ones can cost up to £30 each. With CD models and facelift pre CS hatchbacks (1991-2) do check that the top leading edges of the combined front indicator sidelamp units have not been damaged by careless closing of the bonnet.
Lens damage
Whilst examining the exterior of a car, bear in mind that some models have a reflective décor panel, sometimes referred to a tail blazer. This item is very susceptible to fading on early cars but all models are prone to cracks, chips and less than careful reversing manoeuvres. Replacement is frighteningly expensive – allow £75 even for a good used unit from a breaker’s yard! On all models ensure that ham fisted mechanics have not forgotten to refit the front (2-piece) inner wheel arch liners, as this will leave the front wings exposed to road grime and salt during the Winter months.
Running gear is generally robust but many cars have covered large mileages and there are several potentially expensive problems that can be avoided. A full SAAB dealer (or specialist) history is almost essential, particularly with automatic cars, where the gearbox MUST be drained and have its filter changed at least every 24,000 miles to avoid expensive problems later. Checking the fluid level and colour on the gearbox dipstick will reveal little about the overall condition of the autobox. Instead, the car should be driven at least ten miles, as ‘boxes sometimes loose drive when the fluid gets warm. Upshifts should be smooth and it should be possible to select drive and reverse from the Park position (when stationary with the foot on the brake) without the car jerking violently. There should not be any delay more than a second between selecting D or R with the lever – more than this indicates a problem.
Manual gearboxes sometimes prove troublesome too – beware of difficulty in selecting reverse gear (1994 on cars in particular) and general noise (all years). Cars with tired clutches are not cheap to fix, as the clutch slave cylinder is positioned inside the gearbox. It is worthwhile checking vendors have not left tins of brake fluid in the luggage boot and a glance under the gearbox for damp patches is worthwhile, as fluid leaks can escape from the rubber plugs in the gearbox base.
Be advised that the 9000 engines have timing chains, rather than toothed belts and these can and do wear from 70,000 miles. Beware noisy chains that are audible on tickover when the engines is warm! Very regular oil changes at 6000 mile intervals help minimise wear - the bits alone will cost around £400 to renew the chains, guides, gears and tensioners. My message is... you can buy an AWFUL lot of oil for £400, so don't let it happen! The author has sold recently a very fine 1993 9000CDE 2.3 Turbo - at 158,000 miles the chains are untouched and silent: testimony to the previous owner’s attention to servicing and careful driving.
The 9000 is a strong car but design focussed on protecting the passengers. In a frontal impact crash, damage is often transmitted through the bumper to the chassis legs and door aperture. Tell tale damage to the centre of the roof is virtually impossible to repair and another giveaway is difficulty in closing or opening doors. For this reason it is almost essential to use a company like HPI to check that the vehicle is not listed on the VCAR (vehicle condition alert register) after a serious accident.
It is a very good idea to check all the electrical equipment works. Cars with TCS (Traction Control) can suffer from a rough or erratic idle. Fixing this is not easy, as not all dealers still have the equipment or knowledge to investigate. Used parts are in short supply and substituting known good units seldom works. In any event, when a new/used TCS ecu is fitted, it needs to be reprogrammed to suit. Some specialists known to the author, have scrapped otherwise perfectly good cars because of persistent TCS woes. There is no obvious answer here, as cars so equipped have a different wiring loom and throttle body to standard.
Problems with electric mirrors or window lifters are not unknown and sometimes the resistor block for the blower fan fails, leaving the fan operating only at full speed. This is more of an irritation than anything else: replacement is quick and relatively inexpensive. Motors on electrically adjustable (or memory) seats sometimes fail and it is worth checking that the electric seat heaters that are a boon in Winter still work, as repairs are fiddly and really require hog ring pliers to undo the clips that secure covers to the seat frames.
One trap for the unwary relates to the washer tank reservoir, which around 1992 was relocated from the passenger side of the car to the driver’s side, partly in the interests of easier maintenance but also to accommodate the fitting of impact sensors for the SRS system. This means all CS/CSE hatches will be so equipped and CD saloons from 1992. The tank is mounted behind the front wing on two long bolts, the heads of which are located in hexagonal recesses in the plastic. Inevitably, movement caused by normal driving can cause leaks. Repair is awkward as the wheel arch liners and the wing must be removed. Worse still, the tank itself is a decidedly unfunny £60 or so to buy. Often, leaks are caused by nothing more than a weeping T piece next to the tank, but it pays to be informed of the ‘worse case scenario’ and can lever a bargaining advantage, if trying to purchase.
On the subject of leaks, be not misled by a pool of clear water beneath the car after a run with the air-conditioning (or climate system) running. One owner known well to the author arrived looking slightly depressed one day clutching a new water pump. After it was pointed out that the coolant was a health blue colour and that the screen wash tank contained a solution of methylated spirits, our friend was very puzzled until he remembered that his domestic refrigerator produced copious amounts of water too. Even so, the water pump was fitted, just for added peace of mind on a planned continental trip.
Coolant in the cooling system reservoir should look fairly clean and not resemble oxtail soup. Cars with service histories usually have dealer tags to show when the coolant was last renewed. Water in the oil caused by a blown head gasket is quite unmistakable: not only will the car be boiling its brains out but the oil will resemble mayonnaise and there will be oil in the coolant reservoir. This is notoriously difficult to remove, so do not be unduly worried if a potential purchase shows signs of black oil in the tank but the coolant and oil are nice and clean. In such cases, ask the vendor who did the work and when, for added peace of mind, for it may be that the overheat was caused by a defective radiator (which may not have been changed). The presence of stickers (yellow background, red border) on the opposite side of the engine bay show when the brake fluid was last changed.
Under the bonnet, oil leaks around the cambox gasket on all 9000s are fairly common. Replacement gaskets are inexpensive and easy to fit. On V6 cars, however, access is far more difficult, as much more dismantling is required. Spark plug apertures on the B308 engine (V6) often fill with oil but since the plugs on this engine require changing at 40,000 intervals, this usually goes undetected. Leaks around the power steering pipes leading to the system reservoir (off-side front inner wing) are often due to loose hose clips.
Working around the front of the engine, (2 litre and 2.3 engined cars only) do check that the exhaust manifold studs are present and none are snapped, as these are very difficult to fix with the cylinder head in place on the engine. More often than not, the studs become wasted and weakened so that hard driving or attempts to remove the nuts from the stud result in snapping.
With turbo charged cars offering remarkable power for the money, some will have been driven quite hard. As a result, items like engine mountings can suffer, although this can sometimes be hard to detect. The engines are mounted on two (expensive) hydraulic mountings fitted to the subframe on the driver’s side of the car and supplemented by a steady bar (torque arm) with two large rubber bushes on top of the engine. These are frequently split – replacement is not expensive but a 10 ton hydraulic press was required to change one which failed on the author’s own V6 9000CSE, which has a similar arrangement.
On the nearside of the car, the gearbox mounting may be past its best, too. Excess movement leads to judder on take-off (the right word for a turbo!) and this can, in time, lead to gear selection problems, as the metalastic sandwich joint connecting the gearbox to the gearlever selector rod can start to break up. It is worth noting that uprated Polyurethane bushes are available for the steady bar torque arms and gearbox mounting, as well as for things like the anti roll bars. These are available from specialists like Elkparts and Abbott Racing.
(Andy again)Phew! So in Summary - if you establish the car has been regularly serviced, then the 9000 is a wonderful car - i've driven nothing else for the past ten years and on my 5th car! - they can however, like any 11 year old car, be a money pit if it has not been well looked after and if you aren't inclined to try and fix stuff yourself.
I wish you well and hope that the car is a good one (most are) and that you enjoy owning a 9000 as much as I have
Kind regards
Andy (West London)
posted by 87.194.12...
, Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:59:42
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