Lifetime of Saab

Hello!

I just bought Saab 900i -91. It is former police car, so i guess all maintenances has done in time. There seems to be nothing wrong in car, its in good shape and no corrosion. 400 000 kilometres in kilometre counter.

My question is: What is expected lifetime of car, assuming that i take good care of it... how many kilometres before engine is caputt / corrosion hits really?

Thanks JJ

Reply to
J.J.
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What country, Finland, Sweden? When was it retired from the police?

If it is in good shape then it is. The engines last forever, the gearboxes tend to die after a while. If it is good right now, then you should be good a long time. If you lose some coolant, you might have to replace headgasket soon. If the clutch slips, then clutch might need replacement soon (but VERY easy to fix on Saab 900), if the transmission makes noise in 5th gear it might need rebuilding soon. But that's about it. Corrosion will never happen if the car is kept clean, especially in the front suspension area like under the battery.

Reply to
SmaartAasSaabr

My answer, based on (since 1973) owning 5x99, 3x900 and currently a

9-5SE, is that it will last as long as you do, provided you do look after it.

I generally kept each of my Saabs around 10 years, with the newer ones coming to me and the older ones migrating down the chain to the wife and kids. That's democracy at work. Most of them did around 160,000 miles before we sold them. Now I'm retired, and the kids have flown the nest, we just have a single 1998 9-5SE.

I've never had any sort of engine problem with any of the cars, never any rust, and I live on the Sydney harbour waterfront. I had two automatic gearbox failures with 99's, both at around the 100,000 mile mark, and the headlining fell down on a couple of the 99's, easily fixed by an upholsterer. Only other major failure was a turbo in the

9-5, replaced under warranty, at around 50,000 Km (we've changed from Imperial to metric now) and two SID LCD display failures - both replaced under warranty.

The 900's and the 9-5 are pretty heavy on discs and rotors - I generally have had the front rotors ground once and then replaced during ownership.

As you may gather, I am a happy Saab owner! I hope you get lots of enjoyment with yours.

--=20 Regards, Peter Wilkins

Reply to
Peter Wilkins

No they don't. SAAB engines are no different from other engines in the category, and are subject to the same wear and failure modes as their counterparts. If anything, the turbocharged models run at typically higher IMEP and specific output, and should thus be subject to greater wear.

I believe the reason behind the SAAB reputation for longevity is the pride in ownership that leads many owners to take excellent care of them, and as well to boast of their achievements in long-lasting reliability. After all, the 96 generation already had a reputation for fantastic longevity, yet they had a demonstrably inferior body design, leading to massive rust problems, and their engine was nothing other than a Ford V4, the same as used in the Taurus models, which did not benefit from any particular cult reputation. The gearboxes were notoriously short-lived, a tradition SAAB has unhappily managed to perpetuate through the model-years!

Don't get me wrong, I have never owned anything other than Saabs, and I am as proud an owner as the next - but please don't expect your motor to last "forever". If it genuinely has 400,000 Km on it, you cannot reasonably expect that much more trouble-free operation out of it. How do you know the engine wasn't already replaced at 300K?

GF

Reply to
Greg Farris

You are vastly oversimplifying things, and quite honestly, you're dismissing careful engineering and lumping everyone's design criteria together. This is unfair to Saab's engineers, and incorrect.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

Well OK. volvo and saab were very solid long lasting vehicles in the 70's compared to most stuff. especially when the alternative was english or italian...

If you bought one new you could expect 15 years of decent motoring....with a Fiat you'd be getting the filler out after 5....

Reply to
john

Months in many cases.

Reply to
DervMan

Dunno, FIAT also uses galvanised rust free bodies these days. Fiats may brake down from mechanical reasons, however. My Croma (1987) was quite durable for 10 years. But window frames rusted and a clutch repair seems impossible to get right, Possibly due to incompetent main dealership. (Competent servicing means a lot for durability). Interior plastics was crappy as it warped and rattled, speedo and odometer stopped working.

Reply to
johannes

Taurus models,

Taunus, not Taurus. A reliable engine if you replace the balance shaft bearings _every_ 100 000 km...

Reply to
MH

Taurus models,

Thank you - I stand corrected. And I agree it was a reliable engine - even a very good one, considering the inherent difficulties in balancing a V4 design. Another weak point of this engine was the balance shaft drive gear. A "trivial" problem, except that whern it broke, the entire engine/transmission block had to be removed to replace it, because the oil pan had to be removed to remove the front cover. . ;

For want of a nail . . .

Reply to
Greg Farris

A single example would help your argument ever so much. . .

Why should I not "lump everyone's design together" when that's exactly what GM (the manufacturer of SAAB) has been doing since 1994?

Reply to
Greg Farris

Only if the bearings are worn, the gear might loose its teeth... so, as long as you replace the bearings in time, there's no problem with the gear.

Reply to
MH

I disagree. They used a fibre gear for noise limitation, but this came with a significant MTBF limitation as well. If "lose its teeth" means to you the same thing as "completely disintegrates every 60K/Mi" then we're talking the same language.

The Ford design was just "OK" - remove the oil pan to remove the front cover to replace the gear. This, coupled with the SAAB design - disassemble the entire car, to remove the engine and transmission to remove the oil pan to remove the front cover to replace the gear,and we're well into the sub-optimal.

GF

Reply to
Greg Farris

No, 'loose its teeth' to me means that the teeth strip off the balance shaft gear, due to excessive play caused by worn balance shaft bearings. For stripped gear teeth see

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mileage and an oil pressure indicator showing 0,5 -1 bar tell you it'stime to replace the bearings...

Actually you can remove the front cover without removing the oilpan or the engine.

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with only loosening the oil pan, and some gentle force, you can replace thebalance shaft (and camshaft) gear with the engine still in the car.

Taking off the hood, grille and radiator is just enough...

The balance shaft goes out the back of the engine. To take the balance shaft out, to replace its bearings, you do need to take the engine out of the car (be it a Ford or a SAAB) and remove the flywheel. You could even leave the oil pan in place, but once you've come this far you might as well take it off and clean out any bearing and valve stem seal remains...

Reply to
MH

Sounds about right to me. I didn't say it, because I've never done it, but I was going to say replacing the balance shaft bearings every 60k/mi does not sound like a fun thing!

There was another solution though - they did offer a steel replacement for the balance shaft gear. After getting stranded TWICE (in two different 96's) due to failure of this fibre gear, the steel gear was my solution to feel reasonably confident taking the car away from home.

GF

Reply to
Greg Farris

Hi,

For corrosion look at the front suspension wishbones (the Y arms that hold the suspension onto the body). Particularly the lower one.

Regards Charles

Reply to
Charles C.

Nope...

Or a better procedure...

Reply to
Dave Hinz

I'm having trouble with motivation on that one given your tone to those who have spent the time.

Pardon, but you said "SAAB engines". You know, that would be the ones designed by the Saab engineers.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

We're discussing old ones, though, innit?

By the same token my Dad bought a Fiat in '75 about two weeks after I was bought. Said it was a great engine, strange handling, but fell apart inside a couple of years.

Reply to
DervMan

Yes I got that you were having trouble with it . . .

Would it? There have not been very many of them. Ford, Triumph, Ricardo - perhaps you are referring to the 2-stroke, three cylinder models.

Sorry - don't take it badly. I am as much the Saab enthusiast an anyone here, and have probably owned more of them than most. It's just that, as an engineer, I cannot accept the assertion that any mechanical device will last "forever". Even if we accept the implied hyperbole, it is just plain poor advice to suggest that an engine with 400,000 km on it still has a lot of useful life remaining.

Saabs are pretty well made cars, and have attained near cult status amongst enthusiasts, where they enjoy fierce loyalty for their image and design features. Objectively, however, one can be proud of their spirit of innovation, while admitting they have really "invented" very little. Once they acquired the knowledge transfer for the Triumph OHC engine, they continued to develop it and refine it, but this is similar to what all of their competitors have done as well, and unless you can suggest otherwise, I see no reason to consider the product very differently from that of the competition.

GF

Reply to
Greg Farris

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