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Opinions wanted -- Saab orphan in Florida
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Posted by Monster (more from Monster) on Tue, 21 Aug 2001 21:44:09 Share Post by Email
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Hello, friends!

Today my friend John called me up. He saw an ad in the local auto trader magazine. 1987 Saab 900 Turbo, doesn't run, $900 OBO. So we went out there together to check out this car.

The car looked a little forlorn, though you could see the dignity from years gone by. Edwardian Gray, with the dark red leather interior. 3 door, 5-speed, 184,000 miles on the odometer. The tires were woefully underinflated.

Here's the story -- it was last driven by a teenage girl (yikes!) who has repeatedly (3 times?) broken off keys in the ignition lock and had it replaced that many times. She supposedly now starts it with a screwdriver. I noticed the shifter was in 3rd gear with the numbers all upsidedown on the shiftknob, key out of the ignition. Yeouch. I don't know if the shifter was twisted around or if it was just the knob on top that was spun, but it looked bad, sitting there in 3rd, with the key out. I asked her Dad if she'd tried to pull the key out without putting it in reverse first, and he said, "You have to put it in reverse? Gee, I'll have to tell her that trick!" Sigh.

The front bumper was bashed pretty badly on the driver's side, with the lens and lights missing from the turn signal cluster on that corner. The front of the hood had a dent in it, too. Underneath, the skirt was torn and there was a bash in the skidplate where it looked like it had been driven into a curb. I asked about the crash damage to that corner of the car and was told the car was like that when they bought it.

I opened the hood and looked inside. A bunch of loose wires with electrical twist connectors were jury-rigged to the left headlamp. The engine oil had been very recently changed -- it was clean, but the tranny oil was gritty, foul, and sulphurous -- gear lube. =Old= gear lube. The power steering fluid was black as India ink. There was a faint sheen of oil in the coolant reservoir. I replaced two vacuum lines that were disconnected from the intake manifold. A residue of oil was collected around the base of the distributor, possibly indicating a leak there. The air conditioner compressor and some of the A/C hoses had been replaced with a new unit, smaller than OEM, with H134a labels on it.

The panel below the rear hatch had been bashed in the center, and off to the side, the left rear brakelight assembly was cracked. I opened the hatch. The toolkit was empty, hanging from a single strap as I lifted the floorboard. A puddle of rusty water was collected in the right side just below the dangling kit.

The guy selling it said his daughter was driving it when "suddenly, all the lights came on, the radio lit up full bright, and then it died." He had it towed to a place for repairs. Supposedly, they wanted $1500 to look at it, he refused, and then had it towed home. He can't find anyone down here to work on the car for a reasonable sum, so he's going to sell it and get his daughter some "reliable transportation" for college.

So my friend John is looking for a project car he can turn into a fun commuter. Without being able to crank the engine, I've got no idea of what might be wrong with this car. I've warned John about pinion bearings and transmissions, harmonic balancers, and other ills common to this year for the 900 Turbo. (Oh, yeah, and the headliner is shot. As expected!) He's got access to shop tools, can pull the engine, has worked on transmissions, and in fact, is converting a 944 Porsche turbo into a pure racing machine. Which is sort of why he wants the Saab, as an "every day" car, so he doesn't have to drive the 944T to work. He doesn't have any Saab experience, but he thinks he'd like one.

My first thoughts as we drove away were to warn him to stay away from this poor neglected Saab orphan. If the girl driving it broke and repaired the ignition lock three times and it's still broken because she never learned to put the thing in reverse before pulling the key... well, who knows what else she's done. It's a cinch she never idled the thing to let the turbo spool down before killing the ignition. And I don't trust car owners who can't even keep their tires inflated. We couldn't start the car, so there's no way of knowing if the engine is seized, the tranny is a box of loose metal parts, or the whole electrical system is fried.

John's still toying with the idea, though. He says he can fix the interior up pretty nice -- it wasn't that bad. He doesn't want to throw a ton of money into the car, but he was thinking about that "OBO" part of the ad... maybe the guy will take $500 if we haul it away for him. It might be worth that, parted out, if it's really terminal. Or it might just need a few hundred bucks worth of parts and some fluid changes to be running righteously.

Opinions, anyone? Ever hear of a car failing like this one did? ("all the lights came on, the radio lit up full bright, and then it died.") What do you think? I'm going to have John come here to TSN and read your replies.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this one!

Respectfully yours,
- = M = -

posted by 208.63.2...
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