Shep's Swedes and Stuff

[Shep Shepherd]

Many of you probably remember that I bought my first Saab last year, a 2000 9-5 2.3t SE estate unimaginatively named The Saab:

 

 

I enjoyed the experience of owning a Saab so much that I spent quite a bit of time making improvements to the car, even though it was a bit smoky when started from cold. However, disaster struck last November when in a 'tired and emotional' state at work, I leaned inside the car and started it without remembering to take it out of reverse gear, causing it to lurch backward dramatically with me half inside it, leading to the driver's door catching a substantial metal fence post, which bent it back into the wing, writing the car off - thank dog for protected NCD.

 

I have pictures of the carnage, but I'm not posting them, as they make me sad

 

This event caused me great anguish and exacerbated my mild depression, so I decided to stay away from this forum through fear of ridicule. I now realise that I would have got a lot of sympathy and perhaps help to get the car back on the road, as it only needed a replacement door and wing. Sadly, it isn't on the DVLA database, so it must have been scrapped. I do hope that some of its parts live on in other more fortunate 9-5s.

 

Within days of the aforementioned catastrophe, I bought The Saab 2, a 147,000 mile 2004 9-5 2.2 TiD Linear estate with a full main dealer service history from a part-time trader in Colchester:

 

 

Looks good. Wasn't. It felt cheaper than The Saab (it seems that post 2003 Saabs were subject to Project Drive-esque cost-cutting), the seats were unheated and trimmed in a horrible rough 'cloth' material, it was starting to go rusty in various 'out of sight, out of mind' places and was nowhere near as good to drive as the aforementioned car, although 44 mpg was nice and the aircon blew nice and cold. It ran fine until early March, when the crankshaft position sensor failed. I replaced it, but the car still refused to start. To cut a long story short, it was off the road until late May, when I managed to get it to my local garage, who had to clean a load of goo from the fuel lines and bottom of the fuel tank. I suspect that the car's previous owner ran it on something which wasn't quite road diesel for some time. I suspect domestic heating oil, as he lived in rural Norfolk...

 

Anyway, once it was back on the road, the car was okay, but it didn't feel quite right. Cut to the beginning of June when the car stalled when I pulled out of a side road into dense traffic and wouldn't restart no matter what I did. Cue waiting for three hours in a fairly dangerous position for the AA to tow the car to the garage, who subsequently declared it dead due to a failed fuel pump, which would cost a four figure sum to replace. So disgusted I was with the car, I got it picked up by the local metal recyclers who apparently shredded it within minutes of it arriving it their yard. Good riddance to my first and last diesel engined car!

 

Shep sez: give diesel engined Saabs a wide berth unless you're mental, have a lot of money, or both.

 

And so he hunt was on for a replacement car. It didn't necessarily have to be another 9-5, but I enjoyed The Saab so much that the chances are that when I found a decent example of the model (preferably a pre-2002 model, as I prefer the front end treatment) I'd look into buying it. Alas, all of the good cars were miles away from home, and due to work commitments I was unable to view them, meaning that they had all been sold by the time I was free. However, I saw this ad on eBay and was immediately intrigued, as I'd always fancied a 'proper' Saab Turbo and it wasn't too far from home:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142027238331

 

I duly put in a bid for it a couple of hours before the auction ended and was pretty surprised when I won the auction, having been the only bidder. I imagine that Saabs these days are a very 'niche' car, only bought by people who know them and love them.

 

To cut a long story short, I collected the car - now known as The Aero - a couple of Sundays ago:

 

 

I am absolutely thrilled with it. it has clearly been owned by an enthusiast (the seller had a 9-3 and a 2003 Aero which he had just bought) and has had a lot of work done to it over the years, the last bit being the replacement of most of the exhaust a couple of days before I picked the car up.

 

Performance-wise, it is nothing like anything I've ever driven. So fast, almost dangerously so, but the car can still achieve 32 mpg overall, which is better than the 2.0 lpt version. What's more, the insurance is £100 cheaper than The Saab 2's for some reason. I would have thought it would have been more expensive, due to the potential the car has to cause grief.

 

Being used as a family/business car, it needed a bit of tidying (and still does), but it looks pretty good for its age and mileage (156,000). I may get the front bumper painted, but that's a job for the future. Next job will be a service, which I hope to get done some time next week. In  the meantime, here's a picture of it with my best mate's 2002 2.0 lpt Arc estate, the car which got me into 9-5s in the first place:

 

 

It's mainly used for carrying dogs, and they seem happy enough ^^

 

 

And what of The Volvo? That's enjoying a quieter life after getting me of trouble so many times when I was without a main car. It was recently rewarded with a new cambelt, cat back exhaust system and front crankshaft oil seal for its troubles:

 

 

Cars come and cars go, but The Volvo abides. I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that. It's good knowing it's out there.

 

Thanks for reading

[forddeliveryboy]

Very pleased to see Shep's still here, even though there was an indication on that mobile, temporary board he'd be awar if this Saaby thread was lost...

 

I'm sure there's a way of re-instating all the posts made?

 

The more Saabs on here, the better, as faik

[mrbenn]

As I said before, shame about The Saab but The Aero looks like a belter

[forddeliveryboy]

I'm inrigued by these 9-5s, never having driven one, but very well-acquainted with Saabs of lore - they sound rather bargainous.

[Shep Shepherd]

As of today, I have driven just over 1000 trouble-free miles in The Aero since I've owned it; it's shaping up to be a keeper ^^

[twosmoke300]

Just got my new aero turbo for mine back from getting a new core put in it ! Stage one remap for 90 quid and I should be up around 285bhp . Should be lively

[Uncle Jimmy]

Swedish chapter 4 verse 9;

And lo the brethren of the land of angles did verily worship the great Ovlov in the sky and did abide by the wisdom given unto them by the Ovlov and the Ovlov gave forth to them plenty and did maketh their paths smooth and their estates all the greater.

[Shep Shepherd]

Swedish chapter 4 verse 9;

And lo the brethren of the land of angles did verily worship the great Ovlov in the sky and did abide by the wisdom given unto them by the Ovlov and the Ovlov gave forth to them plenty and did maketh their paths smooth and their estates all the greater.

 

Is that from the Gothenburg Bible?

[Shep Shepherd]

Just got my new aero turbo for mine back from getting a new core put in it ! Stage one remap for 90 quid and I should be up around 285bhp . Should be lively

 

£90 for a Stage 1 remap? Where do I sign up?

[twosmoke300]

Saabnoob ( Karl ) on the uk saabs forum

[Shep Shepherd]

The Aero had its first FTP in my ownership on the way to work this evening. In queuing traffic on the A127 on the way out of Southend (which always seems to be where my car problems manifest themselves), it stopped running without warning and wouldn't restart.

 

Luckily, I had my Tech 2 with me (a device which is literally worth its weight in gold), so I was able to diagnose that the throttle position sensor had gone into to 'limp home' mode (and clear the fault code pertaining to it), which I managed to manually reset satisfactorily using instructions from the internet before the AA arrived. Even so, I had the patrolman follow me home just in case.

 

After an extended test drive, everything seems to be all right, but I'll be having a good look at the throttle body and its electrical connections tomorrow. Hopefully, the FTP was just a glitch, but at least I know what to do if it happens again...

 

EDIT (31/8): cleaned the throttle body's electrical connectors and gave the throttle butterfly and throttle linkage a good clean and lube this afternoon, and all seems well. Might buy a good used throttle body just in case, though.

[Angrydicky]

I saw your old TV2 again the other day. It lives in Stambridge now and seems to have been involved in an accident, as it's sporting a different colour passenger wing and front door.

 

Also, that bloke in Hockley with all the Volvo estates has increased his collection! He's got four on the driveway and another four on the road outside, taking up most of the parking spaces in the vicinity. All 700/900/V70 estates. Bet the neighbours love him

[Shep Shepherd]

Where is Hockley is this Volvo bloke? I might pay him a visit

 

It's nice to hear that TV2 is still around, as last time I checked the DVLA database, it hadn't been taxed or MOTed for quite a while. Whoever currently owns it must see something in it that I didn't

[Shep Shepherd]

Update time!

 

Changed the spark plugs and the DI cassette on The Aero today, as despite the fact it has been running fine since its FTP, connecting it to my Tech 2 suggested that it was misfiring a fair bit on cylinders 1 and 2, not enough to affect the running of the car, but enough to show a fault code. As the DI cassette is a known failure point on 'Trionic 7' Saab petrol engines, and in order to build reliability into the car, I set about looking for a reasonably priced replacement while the existing cassette was still working. I eventually sourced one for £140 including p&p (around half the price I would have paid here) from an eBay seller based in Essen, Germany:

 

 

Although it arrived on Monday, I couldn't fit it until today, as I had to wait for the correct spark plugs to arrive from my favoured online parts supplier:

 

 

According to Saab lore, fitting a new DI cassette without replacing the spark plugs beforehand isn't a good idea, as even one faulty plug can cause fatal damage to a new cassette, and is often why the ones originally fitted at Trollhattan fail in the first place. At least new plugs are fairly cheap for what they are and removing the old ones revealed their electrodes to be a nice grey-brown colour, suggesting that the engine's in rude health.

 

The cleanest thing in the engine bay. For shame:

 

 

The old cassette is now in the boot as a 'get you home' spare. Because Saabist ^^

 

Once I was done, I took the car to ASDA in Shoebury in order to test drive it and refuel it and to buy some cider and ice cream. In the process, I managed to introduce the car to Emma, the Buttery Biscuit Base Sierra:

 

 

I also got to meet Angrydicky for the first time, as he spotted me photographing the cars, and had a brief-but-nice chat with him about various old crocks including the Sierra, The Aero and The Volvo, which was good

 

Next job is to fit a set of Osram Night Breakers to the car's headlights, which I will do when the sun starts to go down and it's cooler outside. I've had them in every car I've owned since The Volvo and they really do make a vast difference when driving in unlit places at night, especially when the lights are on main beam. Should be easy to do, as you can get easy access to the headlight bulbs on a 9-5 to remove and replace them, unlike some cars I care to mention.

[cort1977]

Very nice.   Seems like a remapped Saab is about the cheapest horsepower you can buy at the moment?

[Shep Shepherd]

In my opinion, a Saab 9-5 Aero Hot is an excellent and individual way to go very fast on a budget, with added practicality if you choose the estate version.

 

I imagine that a remapped 2.0 or 2.3 lpt would be just as thrilling to own, as in my experience they don't hang around in standard form

[oldcars]

Shame about the first one, hope you were not too injured. The Aero has some of the smartest alloy wheels ever. Love it.

[nacho man]

I bought one of those di's for mine but when it was remapped it started to fail I believe there fine for standard use but a remap sends them over the edge.

[Shep Shepherd]

I think that the car is in standard tune; 250 bhp is enough for me at the moment 

[SiC]

That age was actually said by Saab to be 220bhp. It's reckoned that it was a very conservative figure. Later models aeros iirc had a slightly different map.

[Shep Shepherd]

That age was actually said by Saab to be 220bhp. It's reckoned that it was a very conservative figure. Later models aeros iirc had a slightly different map.

 

Saab actually admitted at some point in the early 2000s that the power output of the 9-5 Aero Hot was far closer to 250 bhp than they first quoted. Whatever the true power output of The Aero may be, it's still a damn fast car

[SiC]

Indeed.

 

Do you know about: http://www.txsuite.org ?

 

Open source tuning software for the petrol Saabs.

 

There is also an enthusiasts forum full of people helping each other tuning petrol Saabs.

[Robson3022]

This is exactly what I'm looking for!!! Please please please sell it to me 😬

[Shep Shepherd]

Indeed.

 

Do you know about: http://www.txsuite.org ?

 

Open source tuning software for the petrol Saabs.

 

There is also an enthusiasts forum full of people helping each other tuning petrol

 

That's real food for thought, although I'd probably end up with a Saab-shaped garden ornament if I actually attempted to use the software on The Aero

[Shep Shepherd]

This is exactly what I'm looking for!!! Please please please sell it to me

 

It's not for sale in the foreseeable future. In fact, it's shaping up to be a keeper

[Shep Shepherd]

Replacing the DI cassette and spark plugs was a resounding success:

 

 

So was replacing the car's existing headlight bulbs with Osram Night Breakers. The headlights are now almost as bright as the ones fitted to modern cars, especially on main beam 

[UmBongo]

My first Saab 900 was named The Tank.

 

My second Saab 900 was named The New Tank.

 

My brother's latest Saab 900 is known as The Interceptor.

 

[Shep Shepherd]

I tend to refer to my cars by their make or model designation, hence The Volvo and The Aero, but both cars have nicknames, such as Vlov and Volvosaurus and Silver Beast and Speedy Socialist, respectively

 

More strange goings-on in Aeroland occurred last night, when I fitted a new set of bulbs to the heated seat switches, which were completely dark at night and had no doubt been so for ages, due to the bulbs being obscure (Saab-specific?) and expensive. However, I found an eBay seller who was selling them for a fraction of the price Saab dealers wanted:

 

 

 

Two new bulbs in each switch later (one for the illumination of the pictogram and the other for the illumination of the adjustment wheel), and everything's good. I also replaced the bulb in the headlight levelling switch, meaning that the car's dash has full illumination once more. But for how long? At least I have a single spare bulb to fall back on...

[Shep Shepherd]

The Aero might be a fab car, but its size and shape means it's bordering on being a 'lifestyle' estate car, so there's no way that you'd be able to get a tip-bound double mattress in the back of it without a huge struggle, which is where The Volvo comes in:

 

 

 

Despite having owned it for almost 13 years, the car's load carrying capacity never ceases to amaze me 

[alfetta]

Done that in a 80's  'classic' saab 900 hatch.  got a fridge freezer in there too.