Re: 93 9000 - turning off TCS

Dexter,

I have a 92 9000T. The engine cuts out on me, mostly going up steep long hills (I live west of Denver).

What does the TCS valve on the firewall look like and what does it do?

I can drive this around town all day and as soon as I head up the mountain to come home, it cuts out. I turn key off and back on and all is OK for some period of time. Sometimes this is a short period, sometimes until I get home.

Took it skiing the other day where I had to cross the Eisenhower Tunnel at 11,000 feet. I was surprised at how few times the engine cut out on me. Maybe 2 or 3, back and forth.

BTW, it does seem to cut out less when the A/C is off (ACC on Econ), when cold outside and when in 4th rather than 5th gear (manual tranny)

Help appreciated!

Charles

Charles,

Having previously owned this same car (well, probably not the exact same one, but a '92 9000T) I assume by your description of "cutting out" that you mean it goes into "limp-home" mode? Especially since this is in a thread with the acronym "TCS" in it.

Any time the engine goes into limp-home it will store a code as to why. You can extract those codes using a procedure located here:

Once you have the codes decoded you may get a better idea about which sensor is causing your problem. It may be something as simple as one of the spark plugs mis-firing, perhaps due to the higher load of the hill and different mixture at altitude? I hope this helps.

PS - the Townsend website is a God-send. Bookmark it... right away.

Once it went into limp home mode, but I was not driving up a steep hill then, I had just finished that drive and was leaving the stop sign at the exit. About 3 times it quit when not driving up a steep hill. I need to take the time to verify this but I am 99% sure it just quits. When it does this I am usually going up a hill at 70 mph in some traffic in the left lane so coasting to a stop or fooling around to find out if it is limping or has quit is not the first thing that enters my mind.

You mention this is a TCS thread. The TCS light is on. It was on when I bought it late last summer. The previous owner said that East of Sweden or Indian Peaks in Boulder had replaced all the parts between him and the previous owner. (I have a friend with an SPG with the SRS light on and could do nothing about it). I think they put in used parts.

I described the symptoms to Mile Hi Body Shop in Denver (exclusively SAAB since '69) and they said it was the TCS and that the cure was an "upgrade" to the TCS system, which would cost $1,700 unless they could find used parts in which case it would be about half that. I was surprised that the system could not be diagnosed, now I see maybe it can.

Thanks for all the help from this group (and on the ACC thread as I have one fault code there and Townsend says how to determine what that is). I plan to look into this further and see what I come up with.

I will be back!

Charles

I forgot to mention that I have checked the spark plugs for gap and cleanliness and I have a spare DI cassette and the problem occurs with both cassettes. I suppose I could buy a new set of plugs and see if that fixes it.

Charles

I would.