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On Saturday (85+ degrees), I loaded up the car with 4 people and a full tank of gas, used the A/C on highest fan setting, and drove 80 or so on the highway for about an hour -- probably the hardest that my '99 9-3 has ever worked since I bought it a little over a year ago. A/C was only working intermittently, and has been problematic for a while... but it was working awesome for the second half of the hourlong trip. Driving the car into Alewife (outside of Boston) station parking garage, the car seemed louder than usual, but I attributed it to being enclosed in the garage with the A/C compressor on.
When I got back to the car Saturday night, the start was very loud and sounded like there was a problem with a belt or pulley. Hard sound to describe -- sounds like a really loud rattlesnake. The sound faded about 10 seconds after starting, and we drove away.
Not suspecting anything was terribly wrong -- I thought maybe the compressor was having post traumatic stress disorder -- I drove (just two people in the car now, including myself) about 80 all the way home without A/C. On idle, car seemed loud and rattle was sort of apparent. I listened when I got home, and thought it was probably a pulley. Looked on saabnet, found instructions on replacement of belt and idler pulley (which is most apparently the most common pulley failure). Bought parts from eeuroparts, they arrived this morning, and I did the work this evening. Replaced upper idler pulley and serpentine belt. Started the car, and the noise is exactly the same.
Over the last two days, the car has begun to emit the smell of burning rubber after being driven to or from work (only about 7 minutes away), and I'm feeling too timid to drive it long distances. I thought it was just the belt... I'm going to call in the morning for an appointment at my unfriendly unneighborhood (30 minutes away - Patrick) Saab dealer to see if they can squeeze me in (and then squeeze my wallet dry). In the meantime, anyone have any ideas? I checked the other pulleys while the belt was off, and didn't see any excess play or damage, but I'm no mechanic.
Saturday morning I had replaced the intake air temperature sensor because of a CEL code I had read at autozone. CEL disappeared after I installed, disconnected and reconnected the battery. Could I have messed something up during that installation? All I did was remove the old, unplug the harness, screw in the new, plug in the harness, and viola. The noise isn't even coming from that part of the engine...
Had headgasket oil/coolant leak (that was a fun one for the American Express card) last year at this time -- maybe the car is having flashbacks? I had it successfully taken care of by a different dealer (Village), but I'm not sure I can drive the car that far this time.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Cory
'99 9-3 5dr auto 107,600 miles Cosmic Blue only mods to sound system
posted by 68.239.61...
, Wed, 4 Aug 2004 07:56:20
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