Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 11:26:31 -0700 From: "Stephen P. Goodman" <pnewssendrnopsamhlight.net> Subject: Re: 1995 900S Electrical Problem?
My 1988 900S (16v 5-spd) was having a similar problem to this from the time just after purchase. AS IS, alas. But the same characteristics you describe are those of a short I experienced. As such: One sees the dash needles jump momentarily, then the car stalls. Trying to start, one hears the starter rotating, but it's as if the engine just isn't getting gas... Sometimes it starts up, sometimes it doesn't. Didn't have a pattern. And didn't occur for another oh, three months. Then two Wednesdays ago it happened again, and this time AAA towed me, as I was in a hurry to get to the neighborhood of a Saab repair place, where they began to diagnose the problem, while I went on to work. The following Monday I picked it up, and after some stop-and-go traffic, got out on the freeway, where, after some coughing and jumping, it died as before. Wouldn't start. Called the repair service, who theorized that perhaps it was a relay before the gas pump, that, as it gets older, tolerates less heat before clicking closed. I waited 30 minutes this time before calling AAA - and it started enough to turn around in the trucking yard I'd been able to pull into, just that. Got towed and left it with the same guys again. It turned out that it was a short, as I suspected (but was hesitant to give the go ahead on the dreaded Electronic Diagnosis, $200-an-hour trip); they found it by tracing the cables up the driver's side of the engine compartment, half-way up, a connector had been haphazardly fixed once, and now was only intermittently connecting. No more short, as yet. :) It still overheats of course, in the 1/2 to 3/4 range described on this ng. So it's either a short as above, perhaps a worn section of wire having finally gone through; or a bad relay; or a shorted failure somewhere in-component in the circuit. My guess. Stephen Goodman EarthLight Productions * http://www.earthlight.net
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