1994-2002 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I owned this car (900 turbo convertible) for about a month now. It's my 1st Saab, btw.
1995 with 59k miles on it.
I'm getting a constant 16 MPG on a mixed highway/city (50/50) driving, no matter if I go with the light foot or the heavy foot on the throttle.
This drives me crazy and even more with the gas prices these days ...
I've done/checked:
- the brakes don't seem to be dragging (when the car is in neutral I can push it with absolutely no effort)
- the top and the windows were mostly up, except during a few very short trips
- the spark plugs have been changed by the dealer before I bought it a month ago
- the air filter is kinda clean still (I assume it has about 10-12 k sonce it was last changed)
- I kind of lack turbo boost (the gauge doesn't enter in the red, stays on yellow half way). I've been told by an indy that the wastegate actuator is at fault and I assume this shouldn't really affect the MPG ?
- the idle is steady and always around 1000 rpm.
- I ran a tank with some injector cleaner stuff with no change.
- I tried low octane gas (87) as well as 92 and it doesn't seem to make any difference.
- no white smoke, black smoke or any sign of other engine trouble.
I'm planning to take the car to be diagnosed by the Saab dealer.
I called them and asked them how much a diagnostic would cost before going into any repairs and they told me it can take anywhere from 10 min to 5 hours, depending how long it takes to find the problem. At $100 / hour that's could be $500 only to have it checked. Of course they will have to fix it in the end (another $???) otherwise it wouldn't make sense to pay just for the diagnostic - how could I be sure they found the problem if they don't fix it.
My question is: is there a way to check/measure the fuel consumption of the engine itself ?
What can I do here to avoid paying big bucks and not having anything fixed ?
Any advice will be highly appreciated.
stefan
posted by 64.59.14...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.