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Overheated
Posted by CarletonM (more from CarletonM) on Wed, 18 Sep 2002 11:10:53
In Reply to: , Kok Chen, Sat, 17 Dec 1988 12:00:00 

I owned a 1988 900T hatchback.  I bought it five years old in 1992 and kept 
it for almost ten years.  It needed a fair bit of work the first few years 
but held together nicely afterward -- if you aren't fussy about the interior, 
use a stapler to hold up the headliner, and don't get too upset when the 
other driver in the family sometimes forgets how wide the car is.

In 2001 we drove to Quebec for a two week vacation.  The car behaved 
flawlessly.

In August 2002 we drove from our Maryland home to Dayton, then to Toronto via 
Windsor, then to Montreal to see friends.  We noted the temp gauge climbed a 
bit in summertime traffic jams, but once we got moving again the needle went 
down below horizontal.

On Saturday, August 17, we left our friend's house in Morin Heights in the 
Laurentians and headed down autoroute 15, past the Ste-Therese GM plant that 
just stopped making Camaros and Firebirds, and into Montreal, heading back 
home to Maryland.  Our luggage was in the back and two cases of Labatt Blue 
Ice (6.2%) was behind the driver's seat.  As we headed through the 
Notre-Dame-de-Grace section of Montreal on 15, we encountered traffic, which 
slowed to a crawl crossing autoroute 20.  The Jacques-Cartier bridge was 
closed for rework, and all the traffic was on the bridge we were heading for, 
the Champlain Bridge.  Forty five minutes later we got to the bridge.  The 
temp gauge was almost, but not at, the H.  Halfway across the bridge it went 
all the way up.  We pulled off and gained speed to try to cool it down -- 
this had worked before all the time! -- but it didn't happen this time.  I 
turned on the heater.  No heat.  And, the AC still worked -- should not have 
if the car was that hot.  A few minutes later the car lost power and we 
glided to a stop at kilometer 26 on autoroute 15.  I lifted the lid.  The 
plastic expansion tank was misshapen and steam was venting from holes in it.  
I called CAA and they sent a truck which brought us back to Brossard, on the 
South Shore.  A friend picked us up and we stayed at his house.

Monday my friend and I went to a used parts place and got a used tank.  I put 
it in, along with the coolant I bought at Canadian Tire.  The car would not 
start.  I had it towed to Gravel Saturn-Saab-Isuzu in Brossard.  They said it 
was the distributor.  They put a used one in.  The car started -- and water 
and oil went everywhere.  They called and said, 'Desole, votre moteur est 
mort.'  They quoted $3000 Canadian to fix it; that's about $2000 US, and the 
car is worth maybe $500 US at most, given the condition it is now in.  They 
said it's likely the engine failed internally causing it to lose all its 
coolant, and heat did the rest.  They said they would dispose of it for me.  
Canada Customs said there isn't any duty if the item subject to duty isn't 
worth anything.

I took the plates off and emptied the trunk, put it all in a box, and took 
the train home.  I signed the title and mailed it to them.  I went to my shop 
(Scandianavian Import Servicenter in Rockville) and bought a 1999 Saab 9-5 SE 
off lease.  $18,995.  Dream Car and, for the first time in my life (Vespa 
motor scooter, Honda motorcycle, MG, Honda motorcycle, VW bug, VW gas Rabbit, 
VW diesel Rabbit, '86 900S, '88 900T), an automatic.  Only thing I miss is it 
isn't a hatchback with the back that opens up like a hippopotamus mouth and 
swallows all kinds of cargo.  (The wagon was too expensive and I have a 
friendly neighbor with a pickup.)

SO ... anyone have any ideas on what caused the engine's final destruction?

Carleton MacDonald
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