2001 SAAB 9-3 SE Floppytop

[Pillock]

A thread for general ramblings, news, updates, whinging and pictures that don't look too different to the last pictures.

 

So there was a collection thread, and a car was collectionated. Again, MAD PROPZ to Stephen01 of this village who let me exchange paper folding money for a lovely motor. Lovely? Yes, let me tell you more.

 

Firstly, I'm aware that this is borderline shite. The privvy plate is hiding a 51 reg, and as we all know there are several rules around what is and isn't shite - mainly down to does it have an undertray, does it have a major designed-in failure point that will bankrupt you, was it generally unloved at time of sale, and are there four letters or less in the registration. Oh, and does Junkman say so. But, in a few months this will be eligible for classic insurance so I'm going to stick my neck out and say this is worthy of the brown forum. Times are changing folk, can you believe we changed to the "new" system nearly fifteen years ago?

 

Now, I'd done what we all do at some point - agreed to buy a car unseen. Stephen kindly (gladly?) dropped it off eBay for me, as between my dithering he'd advertised it to the grunting mongs. Then I found I could get a decent insurance quote (£200.10 from, of all people, Sheila's flaming Wheels - the "all women are brilliant drivers and men are bastards" insurers. Maybe they caught sight of my moobs. Anyway) so phone calls were placed, and to save poor Stephen from messing around I just said I'd have it, cos he had an honest voice. Turned out alright anyway.

 

 

We exchanged pictures of Her Madge at a Toby Carvery and I went off in search of the motorway, with the roof down as is TEH LAW. First impressions are, it's bloody draughty. Coming from the MGF, which seems lower plus has about three inches of space between the windscreen and the wind deflector behind you. The wind takes quite a nice path over and around the enclosed cabin, and it's completely draught-free with the windows up. The SAAB, with the windows anywhere, is proper blowy due to it being a flat deck with just the windscreen jutting up. More recent trips with the children in the back resulted in my daughter, who had spent an hour straightening her hair, glaring at me for quite some time.

 

Next impressions are it's not as fast as I hoped. It seemed to amble along, not really making much progress - perhaps 2.0 Sierra speed if I were to give it a comparison. A while later I glanced at the speedometer whilst ambling along and realised I was doing somewhere between "naughty" and "yeah, you need to leave your driving licence with us for a bit". It's quite easy to stir it along once the turbo is whirring without much drama, and if you hold onto gears for a while it does like to shift. 

 

The roof. Coming from a car where the roof can be operated entirely from the drivers seat in a few actual, literal seconds I was concerned about the faffy electric hood - but also quite chuffed, it's a proper posers trick to sit at the side of the road and drop it with the tonneau cover flipping up, hood disappearing, the cover dropping, and the windows going down. Not at the lights though, as the owner of a Merc following me found out when the lights changed exactly at the no-going-back point and they held up the traffic for 30 seconds. It's not quick, but it's an engineering marvel and it all works wonderfully. There's quite an amusing sticker which basically warns of rear seat passenger decapitation if they don't leave the car during the process - it's not that bad, but it will drag the headliner over their faces. Ask me how I know. Cue more glaring.

 

Aaah, the headliner. It's saggy. I had visions of that being a massive problem (even though the hood is only a couple of years old, at £1700 fitted) but apparently you can undo a couple of screws, reach between the headliner and soft top, and clip it back onto the ribs. 

 

I've had a couple of nice drives, the turbo is subtle but audible which is nice, the fuel consumption is staggering at high 20s (I drive little tiny turbodiesels all day, and average at least twice that). But as a weekend car for fun, it's worth it.

 

Jobs? Well, first job ticked off - an alcohol wipe over the innards of the electric mirror control has brought them both back to life. The rear bumper is an oddity, the body of it is a little cracked but the black trim has been sprayed so I will probably just put that back to black - not sure about keeping the parking sensors which are a third party addition, they usually work but also squark about something and nothing a lot of the time.  Front bumper also needs a lick of paint to cover up a few chips, but the rest of the bodywork is spot on to be honest, certainly looks more like a 60k car than a 160k car.

 

Headlamp washers work but they don't wipe, so that's on the list. Headliner, a couple of bulbs in the computer - and the climate control display is as meaningful as One Direction lyrics. I can get a whole new control unit for £70-odd but my selection of soldering irons and little tiny screwdrivers is urging me to look into a repair kit for £less.

 

Several MOTs have mentioned a bit of play in the front arms, and although I have no prior experience of how shakey these things are I'll probably look to getting it polybushed at some point. There's also a cheap mod where you just hammer a sm- I mean bolt another ARB over the rear ARB for more stiffness. There appears to be very little pedal movement when you turn the wheel though which is good.

 

 

 

Anything else is fussyness really - the hood needs a bit of demossing, the drivers seat leather needs a bit of attention, but the amazing thing about this £800, 14-year old car is how much stuff works - aircon is ice cold, heated seats are roasty warm, there's literally nothing that needs me to rush out with the toolkit. Headlamp wipers will be nice, but they're not keeping me awake at night.

 

I think the reason so much stuff works, is something evident when I went back through the history and totalled it all up (something I do with every new car) - somewhere north of £7500 has been spent and the first two or three years are missing. New hood, £1700. Fitted at a bloody SAAB dealer! Hood adjustment, £160. New turbo, £810. An engine flush with every MOT, hopefully putting off the sludging until I can drop the sump.

 

Anyway, there's my thoughts. I'll add to this as I do little jobs, but overall - very impressed. A £30k new car, for a fraction of that, with no major faults (or many minor ones), that will offer many grins for summer. 

 

 

[nacho man]

When I first got my 9-5 I was bit underwhelmed, but I have come to really like it, a bloke in nottingham remapped it for me for £80 called noob tune, wonder if he does these too.

 

I dropped the sump on mine and fitted the up dated pcv shizzle, with some fully syn in they should* never sludge up.

 

I really do like the look of these they look nice and classy.

[nacho man]

http://noobtune.co.uk

[stephen01]

starts looking on ebay for saabs!! 

 

I really wanted to keep this, but i feel like i owe it to my herald to get it up and running 100%  

 

the history with this one makes it a keeper, im sure this is only going to increase in value!

 

[Pillock]

Yeah, that noob guy is tue defacto response to anyone on any Saab forum who asks about remaps.

 

I'll probably sort the PCV etc first, but I don't think there's a cheaper way to get more power.

[Skizzer]

That looks like a really classy motor, and a very fine write-up.  The colour shows it off very well, much better than the usual black.  

 

I say well bought and enjoy it, if it's not Official Shite now then it will be soon enough so don't sweat it.

 

 

Edit: You're not sweating it anyway, are you.  God I sound patronising sometimes.  Sorry.

[Pillock]

Aaah, thanks for the RR pointer, I'll go and check that out. I figured that the fuses might be a good place to start, there's no headlamp wiper isolator so I guess in the winter if you don't clear your headlamps the same as the windscreen, it'll just blow if the wipers are stuck. Fingers crossed eh!

[Pillock]

Loads of work done today.

 

I drove up to Rotherham to a breaker who had an aircon control unit. Went to Meadowhall whilst I was there, had a coffee in Starbucks whilst peoplewatching and doing my Sainsburys online shop. Bought some trousers from TK-Maxx. Came home, plugged in the ACC, it all works absolutely beautifully with zero missing pixels.

 

 

So just sent the seller of the LCD panel I bought a grovelling email to see if he wants to do a partial refund (as I've used the FPC connector off it) to recoup some cash.

[nacho man]

 

I am the worstest solderer ever. So I think I am gonna send my Sid of the Siddoctor.

 

I feel a bit of a failure, but you know, it's easier.

[Pillock]

I dunno, if you can get a good working one from eBay - they seem to go for £20ish whole, or a repair for £50.

Mind you, a replacement might conk out after a few days. That looks like it only needs a cable fix, a bit more pressure applying - mine was originally showing a bleed on the screen so needed a whole new one.

 

 

Edit: And was the wrong way up, clearly. But you can see the flower shape at the top of the fan speed indicator, that was always there from turning the ignition off.

[Shep Shepherd]

I consider myself lucky, as at the moment, The Saab's SID unit (a SID 2, no less!) and ACC displays are totally unpixellated. I wonder how long this will be the case?

[Pillock]

They are a shit design inside. The cable is attached to the PCB with something resembling dog snot, I looked at my old one funny and it just came away.

 

I've got a bulb out on the SID but by buying a new ACC I've got some spare bulbs. I could have replaced that today, but I put the roof down (whilst driving through the yard at 2mph, rebel yo) and went for a drive in the sun instead.

[Pillock]

Been really busy on this today as well. I'm bloody knackered.

 

I moved the spare 7.5A fuse to replace the blown headlamp wiper fuse, so the wipers work now.

 

Then I drove it around in the sun until the fuel light came on.

 

Moved a fuse. Epic skills.

[eddyramrod]

I might try that myself.  The headlamp wipers don't seem to work on mine, although the washers do.

[Pillock]

Fuse box under the bonnet, there's a label inside the lid but on mine it was far left hand side, halfway up. 324a or something (don't worry, there's not three hundred fuses!)

 

They appear to wipe every other time, so pull back on the washer stalk with headlamps on a couple of times and they give two wioes, so enough time to run around the front and look.

[HMC]

Great write up, and a nice motor! Well specc'd colour combo and I agree on your assessment of its shite credentials- the world moves on to newer stuff and we get to re evaluate cars at one time were out of most of our reach.

[Pillock]

Time for a bit of an update. The car has been utterly faultless, I've done "a few miles" in it (I'm not saying any more until I remember how many miles is on the insurance, although it's only a guideline as it's not a classic policy) and not had a single worry.

 

I think next month will see new front braking bits, it's getting a bit squealy slowing from speed and it shimmers a bit when it does it. There's plenty of meat on both but it seems the easiest place to start making it better. Once the brakes are up to scratch there's always the option of one of them cheap remaps for 225bhp of happiness - but I'm going to do it the right way around.

 

Also there's a few bits of bodywork need attention, the back bumper should have a black strip but at some point it's been sprayed body colour. Well, most of it - genuinely looks like someone ran out of paint and it just fades out. Hopefully a bit of scrubbing will take it off as it doesn't look like it's been primed first. Any other tips for removing paint from plastic? And the front bumper also has an attack of acne, the factory paint this time though so I need to remove paint from the back and add it to the front.

 

My new climate control unit has also developed the same fault of missing segments, but at least the LCD hasn't bloomed in this one. I've still got a replacement LCD so I might get the right soldering iron tip and have another go, just needs a new ZIF FPC socket as I buggered the one that came with the screen. And whilst I've got that out, I've found a mod that adds an Aux In socket to the stock stereo using the telephone circuit. I've got a thing about stock head units, they look "right" and interface nicely with the SID but it pains me that I've got no bluetooth, aux in, or even a casette slot to put an adaptor in.

 

All in all, hassle free and I don't suppose an average of 34MPG since purchase is bad, it just compares badly to my 58mpg work steed and I've not had to use my own cash for fuel since 2012. I found out today it does 80mph in third gear though.

[RichardK]

Popping the SID open on Jen's 9-3 revealed the usual problems, but they were sorted simply by adding an extra foam strip on the clamp forcing the ribbon and PCB together.

[Pillock]

Clamp? The ACC I opened last has no clamp on the ribbon, it was just stuck to the PCB. And came off with almost zero effort..... Not sure if an ACC should have a clamp, there are holes either side.

[robinmasters]

My wife's keen on getting one of these; this isn't helping!

[The Moog]

What's the aux mod? Would love to do that.

[Pillock]

You whip the head unit out, cut a couple of traces and wire a 3.5mm jack in with a switch. Flick the switch and the head unit thinks it has a phone call incoming through the phone harness. Display reads Telephone, audio comes from socket.

 

There's a few different types of mod, some people seem to get mono only but plenty of good reports. You can also do it via wiring behind the kick plate but that is mono only always.