1992 n/a daily driver

[saabfan9]

hey guys looking at a 92 c900 n/a ... question if anyone drives them on a daily basis (work car) wondering about the reliability..live in a very cold Chicago region ...this thing is clean 160k

[Mezzanine]

Just as reliable as any other classic 900, which is to say it is not likely to let you down. The gearbox on an NA car should be good to go. The 2.1L cars are prone to some corrosion on the block deck at the water jacket on either the #1 or #4 cylinder, but I can't remember which one.

I daily my '85, and it has 375,000 miles. It has never left me stranded in the 10+ years I've owned it.

[Jordan]

I gave one to my wife to drive on her 90 mile daily commute if that inspires any confidence.

[DrewP]

I'm buying a low mile '93 900S this weekend actually for an extra driver. The drivelines hold up really well because of the reduced power compared to the Turbo cars as long as they were maintained. Like Mezzanine said, it'll be as reliable as any other 20+ year old Saab. I've had some be dead reliable and barely need to be touched for 5 years, and my co-worker bought a '93 900S convertible, and he's had to put a few hundred dollars in it every few months pretty reliably for the last 2 years. If the maintenance history looks good and it drives good, it's probably good.

[99Super]

If the maintenance history looks good and it drives good, it's probably good.

That's pretty much verbatim what I tell folks when I'm asked about older SAABs.

John

[SwedeSport]

I am currently DD'ing my 89 turbo sedan.

It has its issues but it currently is the most reliable vehicle I own.

[DeLorean]

A classic 900 as a daily driver is a "good to fair" car in my opinion. These things are great cars, for people with experience with them. Part of the issue is that it is a uniquely engineered car, with faults all it's own, some of which you will never have with other cars, some problems with other cars you will never have with a classic 900. Also, the newest one is OVER 20 years old! so you will have some 20 year old car issues with them.


Case and point?
"the normals" when changing a classic 900 alternator, love to take hours trying to figure out how to get the thing out of there, and then eventually break the alternator bracket, OR take an air hammer to the firewall to make that bolt fit out of there. Then when they put it back together, they don't replace the corroded ground wire or the bad alternator bushings...

Someone with some classic 900 knowledge? Alternator not charging? Replace the ground wire and the voltage regulator. This seems to fix 90% of them.

Also, I take issue with that fact that many things although you can still get them, you can't always get good quality parts. You can no longer purchase a quality heater control valve! You can't buy fuel gauge senders for them except used. Almost anything trim, or interior related, can't get...

[Jordan]

We might be able to get fuel gauge senders... keep your eyes peeled

Basically what you want to do is get the car sorted first with quality parts. Ball joints, axles, waterpump,coolant hoses, do a tune up and they go forever until the headgasket blows, or you run it out of of oil or water... Once the HG is done you pretty much are good for another 200k.

True it does take some experience to fix them correctly. And they all have their little quirks of stuff that doesn't work. They aren't the quietest or the most feature packed , but I still think it is very much a solid daily driver car. They like to be driven.

[saabfan9]

i had a 9000 aero and loved that car i then moved into a 2005 9-5 aero and it just seems to lack a soul or personality i would like to get back into a 9k but they seem to have disappeared ... so i was looking at this '92 looks very clean with a ton of recent work done (clutch-tires-w/p-etc.) .... very hard to convince the wife to let me have an old car as a driver (already have the 99 and a '84 900) think i would transfer the flat nose parts over if that is possible? thanks for any advice guys

[Crazyswede]

The newest 900 is a 20 year old car. They can be great daily drivers if you are comfortable working on them yourself and familiar with their problems. If you have to have someone else fix the problems that will come up then you might find the car to be better for a play car.

[saabfan9]

thats part of it the last c900 i had was about 13 years ago...now i'm a tech at a dodge dealer for 25 years and had newer saabs ever since

[Sam]

I daily drove a 9-5 for years until it hit 140k miles, and now it just needs everything. (Lost reverse among other things)

Recently I picked up an 89SPG which is sort of my daily although I only typically drive on the weekends. It has been pretty reliable, and I must say that I trust it more than I do the 9-5 because it doesn't have the troublesome DIC issues nor the crank position sensor failure issue. I did need to put a new distributor on it, since the original one was buggered up and kept getting water in it. It also needed a new hose for the iac valve which you can no longer buy, so i had to hunt around on ebay.

Other than that, I replaced the shocks which are insanely cheap ($25) on rockauto and a few seatbelt buckles. I also changed the trunk gas shocks because i found them annoying. I also redid the radio because the C900 radios are horrible. Even if you add up all of these items, you'll only reach a few hundred bucks. The C900 is definitely the most reliable and easy to understand saab, and I think it shows. Its the kind of car you can buy with a ton of miles on it and still expect it to work. I often have friends or relatives ask me about buying 9-5s or 9-3s with a lot of mileage, and I just cannot recommend them. I always try to sell them on a C900

[saabfan9]

http://www.cars.com/go/search/detail/ph ... e=usedcc#0

[Sam]

That car has definitely been in an accident. Its clear that the airbag deployed and they stuck it back together. I can't quite figure out what happened to it but i'd stay away. You should be able to get yourself a nice SPG for the price.

Check the massive craigslist thread in for sale/wanted or use google to crawl craigslist.
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=saab ... as_rights=

[saabfan9]

OK guys one last push ... looking for a replacement for my stolen 2005 9-5. i had no insurance coverage so i'm kinda starting at the bottom. i work in the auto field i'm a certified tech at a dodge dealership for the past 20 years and i have really gotten to dislike the newer boring vehicles on the road but they are also 100 times more reliable .. i have about a 75 mile round trip to work 6 days a week the two cars i'm looing at are :::: 2003 9-5 linear (auto) or a 1992 c900 (manual)...now the c900 has just had a head gasket,clutch,tires (just a ton of paperwork done)...not sure how much trust can go into a 20+ year old car