Date: Wed, 09 Jan 2002 22:42:18 +0000 From: danny <dannynopsamia-esprezzo.com> Subject: Re: 900 se
"Kenneth S." wrote: > I'm curious. I bought a 1996 900SE about a year ago. It had several > things that needed attention on it, and I took it to the Saab dealer. I > was told that, in addition to the things that needed to be fixed, the > belt and the idler pulleys should be replaced. (The car had about 65,000 > miles on it at the time.) I had this work done, at significant expense. > > I have owned quite a number of different cars. I don't remember ever > having this kind of problem with them. Is there something peculiar > about the design of Saabs that requires this belt to be replaced every > 50,000 miles? There seems to be some confusion here. Firstly, there are (at least) two uses for belts/chains - the timing belt/chain and the accessory (serpentine, on a Saab) belt, not including things like the balance chain. Timing belts often need changing at between 40-60k miles on normal vehicles - ie: Ford, Vauxhall etc. The Vauxhall Omega, for instance, requires this at 40k *maximum*. Accessory belts usually go with greater frequency, and the serpentine belt used on Saabs is longer lasting than most, except that on conventional engines there is usually more than 1 accessory belt serving the alternator, water pump, power steering, fan, etc. On Saabs there is 1 belt that covers it all, so when it does go, it causes potentially more problems. Always carry a spare. -- Regards, Danny http://www.gaggia-espresso.com (a purely hobby site) http://www.dannyscoffee.com (UK advert for my mobile espresso service) swap Z for above characters in email address to reply