240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by 360beast

I love Saab 90's (the one that looks like a 99) 99's 900's and 9000's, the rest are a bit meh for me, especially the Vauxhall badge engineered ones, I wouldn't touch one of those with someone else's barge pole.

That convertible one Alan probably had a cracked bulkhead, a common problem with them.

I think most Saabs are good looking cars, tried a 99, owned a 900i but wouldn't have another for the simple reason i can't get on with the driving position, gave me backache.

Originally Posted by Othen

I had the bulkhead checked (by a Saab specialist) Luke as it was a well known problem, but no, the 900 convertible just handled very badly (according to the specialist). Saab even produced an aftermarket fix consisting of some weld on brackets and a brace I think. It was quite cheap to buy the kit but very expensive to fit due to the skilled labour cost. By then I'd given up with the motor car and was happy to see it go when I bought the Porsche.

I think the steering issue came about because it started off as a saloon, had the roof removed but not much strengthening added to compensate, additionally Saab put on a lot of extra weight, exacerbating the problem.

The 900 was full of lots of other poor engineering that didn't appear on the Vauxhall equivalent, one that come to mind was the self-adjusting clutch cable that almost never worked and generally meant drivers had to undertake a Charles Atlas course for their left leg. In the end I gave up trying different Saab fixes and bought the equivalent Vauxhall Astra parts from a scrapyard. they fitted easily because Saab hadn't deleted the fixing holes for the Vauxhall non-self-adjusting cable; it worked perfectly and made the clutch action quite good.

That was the only Saab I've owned; it seemed to me that the company waas its own worst enemy.

:-)

Yours looks very like one a friend of mine owned a few years back Alan, even down to the registration - can't remember his reg exactly but it was Rxxx UBL and was a black rag-top. The roof wouldn't go up and down thanks to a fault in the hydraulic control system where they had used Cherry V10 microswitches - Saab wanted an absolute fortune for each one and although i informed him i could replace them for peanuts, he sold it on for scrap because there were other problems with it. Transpired that the ECU had become fried due to water ingress so even if the roof had gone up and down, the engine wouldn't run long enough to take you anywhere!

It's often said about Volvo that they take a simple idea, over-engineer it and then complicate the bejesus out of it. With Saab they seem to square or even cube the last stage!