New sexy Saab shite.

[Lankytim]

Finally picked this up the other day.

 

 

 

Smart eh? It's a 1998 Saab 95 SE 2.3 Turbot manual. 128k and full service history, mostly at Saab. It had been parked up on a driveway for over a year but was MOT'd in March to allow the owner to transfer his personal plate onto his new car. The exterior was covered in moss and mould but has cleaned up very well indeed. Apart from the odd carpark ding in the flanks its pretty tidy and mechanically it seems pretty good too, although 3 tyres need replacing due to pretty severe perishing and I can't remove the rear locking nuts... They were all seized solid but I used the smaller socket trick on the fronts to good effect.

 

The inside is absolute top drawer luxury compared to what I'm used to with lots of leather, posh looking fake wood and fancy looking carpets. It has an amazingly snazzy Saab information display thing (not working properly) and dual zone climate control which doesn't work due a duff fan motor. I think I can take this out via the scuttle panel and hopefully it should only need some brushes or something. Central locking doesn't work on a couple of doors either, but then it was very cheap so I can't complain. Hopefully none of these issues should be too much bother to sort out.

 

 

On the road it feels very modern and well screwed together, although not that fast for a 2.3 turbo. It does pull well though. It's more of a cruiser than a motorway bruiser I think.

 

Anyway, my Volvo 240 was sold on Sunday so this is now my daily driver. So far I love it!

[myglaren]

Looks great. Excellent buy if it was cheap - or even if it wasn't.

 

Daughter had a 900 2.3 that was pretty quick but not as quick as the older 900 2.0 16v Turbo Aero S.

She regrets parting with it and wants another (old style) 900 cabriolet.

[Spiny Norman]

Oooh, I do like a nice Saab.

Great value these old 9-5s, and I'm pretty sure the tree on the dash is real.

[ashmicro]

Sweet. Well bought sir.

[Pete-M]

These are one of the very few Saabs I like.

 

Oh, and the dot matrix display used to turn into a dot to dot when they were nearly new. Good luck finding a working one of those.

[tonedepear]

There's a fella on ebay who will repair your SID if you send it to him for 40 notes http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAAB-9-3-9-5-SID-REPAIR-SERVICE-TWO-years-warranty-/271022515060?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3f1a336374

or there's a DIY cocking about effort as documented here: http://blog.saab9-5.com/?p=8 but general consensus is the eBay repair is well worth the money. (I did this on my old 9-3 and managed to tear the ribbon off completely like a mong)

 

Also, VERY NICE.

[gadgetgricey]

Hi again Tim,

 

Dave here, who bought the Saab 900 off you a while ago.

 

Nice to see you have embraced Saab ownership

 

You need to get yourself over to UK Saabs, and ask about an ECU upgrade. Loads on there that can do it for around £50.

 

Basically it will up the power from about 170bhp, to 230bhp. (guestimates regarding the model you have, but should be a decent increase)

 

If you are planning on keeping the car, do a search on sludging issues as this is a known fault with the engine, but there is a "breather" kit you can fit. Also is recommended to drop the sump and give the oil strainer a clean as that's where the issues lie. Basically bits of the pipe's come away and block the oil flow to the engine.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

 

 

(Would be interested in first dibs, if you ever decide to sell )

[dollywobbler]

Do not like - the indicator stalks sound like someone cracking their knuckles. Ugh!

 

However, if you like it, then fair enough. We're not all alike after all! The one I spent a lot of time driving had the world's bimbo-est automatic gearbox in the world, which didn't help. Manual is definitely the way to go.

 

Have you discovered the twin sun-visor trick yet? (two per side!)

[ayd]

very nice

 

love our 9-5 but as someone's pointed out watch out for the sludging, worth taking action now before it's too late.

 

Ours is getting a touch long in the tooth but we can't thing of anything else we'd rather replace it with than another 9-5 so going to look at an Estate version this weekend.

(Alos hope to pick up a W plate 9-3 Aero that needs a wheel bearing and a bloody good valet next week for £300 but not told the wife this yet)

[gadgetgricey]

Have you discovered the twin sun-visor trick yet? (two per side!)

 

Its the cup holder that is a work of genious

 

- Dave -

[wuvvum]

Think the LPT 2.3s are 185 brake as standard, if memory serves. I quite like 9-5s - very relaxing motorway car, although I find the driver's seat doesn't go back very far for a relatively large car. They're not quite as well built as 9000s and C900s either, although they're better than most other GM stuff.

 

And yep, best cupholders of evAr.

[Shep Shepherd]

I like 9-5s a lot and almost bought a 1999 2.0t manual 'SE' estate a few weeks ago (a snip at £1000) before I decided to stick with what I know best and spend some time/money renovating TV2

 

A good friend of mine has a 2002 2.0t manual 'Arc' estate, which he bought from his father after his 9-3 got crunched on the M25 in 2010. He has had no problems at all with it and plans to keep it for at least another ten years:

 

 

The only thing that I don't like about it is the dashboard, which has a printed-on wood effect and looks distressingly artificial. That, and the fact that it's much faster than TV2, as I found out in eastern Germany last year...

[Lankytim]

I checked through the reams of paperwork that came with it and found that the modified breather kit was fitted a few years ago, so thats a bonus! The ECU upgrade sounds very interesting, I must google it!

 

Still can't get the rear wheels off. I spoke to the garage who MOT'd it last (and actually took the rear wheels off) and it's a job they really don't want to tackle as apparently it took ages to remove them last time...... so why put the knackered locking wheel studs back in then??

[Lacquer Peel]

These are one of the very few Saabs I like.

 

I thought you didn't like Vectras.

[Pillock]

These are one of the very few Saabs I like.

 

I thought you didn't like Vectras.

 

SAAB don't make Vectras, that's Vauxhall you're thinking of.

[skattrd]

Very nice Tim. As mentioned, I think these ecu's are eaily tweakable for more powah.

I found http://www.uksaabs.co.uk/UKS/ a good forum for advice and bits of spares shopping.

[Lufthansa-Terminal]

These are one of the very few Saabs I like.

 

I thought you didn't like Vectras.

 

SAAB don't make Vectras, that's Vauxhall you're thinking of.

 

 

Its the general motors era Saab based on the vectra floor.

[Pete-M]

Floor pan insanity...

 

Yup. Saab made it ride and handle quite well considering.

 

The whole floor pan thing amuses me. There are so many variables than can be introduced even when the basic shell has a few hard fixed points. Saab didn't just reshape a Vectra, they'll have changed all kinds of things to make feel (a bit) like a Saab.

 

It doesn't always work. I adore Alfa 164s but don't like the feel of the Saab 9000. I like the Lancia Thema, but the Croma leaves me cold. Delta Integrale is based on a Fiat Strada floor pan ... the list goes on forever. Some drive very similarly to others, some drive completely differently.

 

Want to try floor pan madness? Drive an Escort Cosworth after a Sapphire Cosworth and a Mk5 RS2000 Escort. They all feel very different, and the Escorts are fairly unrelated mechanically, but the EsCos feels just as RS2000 as it does Sapphire...

[Lankytim]

So how much of it IS Vectra? Nobody seems to know.

 

I managed to get the rear wheels off last night. The locking nuts were badly chewed up but after some extreme violence with a socket and hammer I got one off, the other side resulted in a broken socket so I welded a large bolt to it, which broke off but a larger socket packed out with thin strips of metal got that one cracked off too. Yay!

 

Anybody know to some cheap part work 215/55/16 tyres?

[MrRegieRitmo]

My latest daily driver is a 2002 Saab 9-3 2.0t SE which I bought back in July. I would be interested in getting the performance uprated, there is a Hirsch perfomance upgrade done through Saab specialists, is this the best way to do it or is there a cheaper route to getting the performance improved? (which maintains reliability etc)

Also, do insurance companies take a dim view of performance upgrades? For instance will they sting you more for modifying a car from 150bhp to 200bhp as opposed to just going out and buying a car that has 200bhp as standard?

[Lankytim]

Thanks to fellow shiter Gadgetgricey I managed to obtain a pair of central locking motors, new hazard switch to replace the broken original and a pair of pedal switches to go with the cruise control stalk I bought on ebay recently. Spent today fitting them all and after only an hour or so I was rewarded with fully functioning central locking and cruise control. Wooop!

 

I've never owned a car with cruise control, should make motorway driving easy peasy. A quick test on the local test track (i.e the A500) shows it's all working correctly, which sort of surprised me a bit as it was very easy to fit. All the wiring is already there and on most 9-5's the pedal switches are already fitted meaning you only need to add the cruise control stalk. Why didn't saab just fit it as standard? I bet it would have only cost a couple of quid extra per car or something

[Morgan84]

Very nice Saab;the newer ones aren't any where near as nice,and the newer 9-3 models with the nasty interior plastics definately feel like a GM product ... Daewoo springs to mind

 

Always did like the 9-5