My brother-in-law picked up a 1990 SAAB 900 (non-Turbo) that, among other things has some apparent brake issues. It seems to run well enough, but it needs an a half shaft and some work done on the brakes. All other things being equal, I think I would have passed on this car. He only paid $400, but I have this bad feeling that he's going to have well over $1000 into before he gets it entirely road worthy. Although I have to admit that this car will probably be far more reliable than a comparable US car of the same vintage. I'm a VW affcionado, myself, and he thought that the Saab was of German origin. It's not, but it seems to share at least a number of similar type control systems of european origin.
I took a look at it for him and it is apparent that the brake booster isn't working, so you have to stand on the brakes hard to stop. Is this a common thing for older Saabs? Out under the hood, the master cylinder looks like nothing I've ever seen, with a number of sensors into various ports on the cylinder. After doing a little reading, I think the car might have some sort of ABS on it. It has a little globe shaped tank on top of the cylinder that found pictures of in reference to being an ABS pressure accumulator. Where would one begin to troubleshoot this?