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To find it I just started fault tracing the various hoses. I figured the problem was most likely some type of air leak because of the way the engine surged and the high idle. I guess it could also have been the FPR, but problems with those are rare, even with the mileage on this car. The rich mixture and one semi-fouled plug threw me for a bit, but as I thought through what might cause the problem I just figured it had to be too much air.
I started on the throttle body and those hoses were all OK: tight connections, no splits or cracks. I was also thinking it could be a bad electrical connection somewhere. So I looked for electrical connections with hoses going to the engine. On the firewall there is a device that has electrical power to it and a couple vacuum-size hoses coming out of it. I tried running the engine with that device connected and disconnected. That made a difference and threw different codes, but the idle was still erratic.
One hose from the device went to the throttle body and was fine and the other went to this fitting. I just about fell over when I saw how loose it was. It was hard to see: the only tip-off was when I ran the hose to look for leaks/splits. Then the fitting moved! It was sitting flush on the manifold and was held on by a 10mm bolt that was 14-16mm long that was almost completely free. With the engine running the fitting would have been wiggling around and all kinds of air would get under it.
I didn't investigate: This was in a ski area parking lot, it was cold, snowing, and I was being hit by a sturdy wind. I was running out of ideas and hoped this was the problem. I figured if something that's supposed to be tight is seriously loose, making it tight might be the answer! Fortunately it was. The nearest good Saab shop was 30 miles away and this was Friday of Thanksgiving weekend. And my kid needs the car for work.
I still don't know what the device on the firewall is. Haven't bothered to investigate, and the car is 90 miles away and running fine with 223K on it. What still bothers me was that it was so sudden. The car was OK in the morning and was bad at the end of the day. My daughter can be a bit oblivious about car stuff, but still. This problem threw a flashing CEL, had the red exclamation point in the instrument cluster, bad idle issues, all at once. It's just weird! I figure the bolt had somehow loosened up. A minor leak wouldn't be noticeable once the car was being driven and then the bolt would back out from vibration.
Next time I see the car--probably around Christmas--I'll go back in and put some Loctite Blue on that bolt.
->Posting last edited on Sat, 6 Dec 2014 10:50:23.
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