01x03 - Saab 900 Turbo Part 1

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to Wheeler Dealers,
where I show you how to buy,

restore and sell modern
classics cars of my generation.

The challenge is to find
the car and to restore it

back to tip-top condition
for a thousand pounds.

I'm going to show you where to get the
cars from and how to source the parts.

To help me through the process, I've
got my very own grease monkey Ed China.

He's going to be fiddling with the
spanners to restore the beauties back to

their former glory, like this Saab 900
Turbo.

In an age where all cars look like the
Saab 900 Turbo remains a one-off.

With its wrap round aircraft style
windscreen, sophisticated turbo charged

engine and heated seats, this is one
classy car.

I love the Saab 900
Turbo because back in the

mid-80s there was nothing
else like it on the road.

Quirky looks and engineered like a jet
fighter.

For decades Saab had been building
aircraft as well as cars.

In the 80s they'd drawn years of technical
knowledge to create an all-new 900 Turbo.

A groundbreaking aerodynamic
shape with rock-solid reliability

and an engine that wouldn't
look out of place in a jet plane.

The car was luxurious in a laid-back
Swedish way and featured all kinds of

innovations like a pollen filter in the
ventilation system.

At 13.5 grand it was a pricey motor.

That's the equivalent of £30,000 today.

But for that you've got
a 2.0-litre turbo capable

of 0-60 in 8.2 seconds
and a top speed of 125mph.

The 900 Classic, as it came to
be known, remained in production

for a remarkable 14 years and
sold over a million worldwide.

Today the car has a big
fan base, parts are easy to

come by and there are
plenty of specialists around.

But the 900's cult
status means it's hard to

find one in good nick
at a knockdown price.

I've got just £1,000 to spend on buying
and fettling a 900 Turbo and I've decided

to use a few high-tech tricks to help me
in my search.

I'm going to buy a Saab 900 and I've
chosen the internet to help me.

The reason I've chosen the internet is
because there's a whole host of

information at your fingertips and easily
accessible.

The internet has revolutionised car
finding.

It's made it so easy.

The Motor Trade Press
have even got their own

dedicated websites that
are doddled to search.

All you need to do is to put in the
information of the car you're looking for.

In this instance a Saab and then I can put
in the drop-down box underneath it,

a 900 and I can even specify how much
money I want to spend.

Now the minimum price I'm looking for is
cheap.

It's only a bag of sand, £1,000.

I can then put in my post
code and the distance

that I'm prepared
to travel to see a car.

In this instance I've put 60 miles.

I then click search and off it goes.

It goes through their database and it
gleanes all the information I need and

hopefully it'll come up with a result for
me and it has already.

It's come up with nine cars found.

Look at this one.

A Saab 900, 2 litre, 5 door hatchback,
1990 car, loads of service history,

£395 and that's within 50 miles.

There's another one underneath,
an 87 Saab 900, 2 litre, 5 door,

MOT'd until February next year, new battery
breaks, £500 and it's within one mile.

So there's lots for me to get through.

Hopefully there might be a turbo on here,
that'd be nice.

So I'm going to get through and see if I
can find one.

I think I found the gem.

B registration 1985 black Saab 900 turbo.

Done galactic miles unfortunately,
185,000 miles but who cares.

At this money only 700 quid.

I think that's the one for me.

I'm going to give that one a ring.

I phoned up about the
Saab and he actually

wants 750 quid but the
car still sounds good.

I always ask about the service history.

This seller says he's got
bundles of receipts going back

years and that the cars
always had regular oil changes.

That is essential on a big mileage car.

When I'm buying a car like this I want to
see it parked outside a nice house with a

well-trimmed lawn
because that's another clue

that the car's probably
been well looked after.

Now, remember what I've been telling you
about nice house.

It's bound to be a nice car.

Lovely neighborhood.

I bet you it's a cracking car.

It looks straight.

There's a little tip for you.

Before you knock on the door, just fill
the bonnet.

Make sure they haven't started out and got
it nice and warm.

A lot of people do that.

Right, let's just hope they're nice
people.

Hello there.

Hello.

I'm Mike.

Hello, I'm David.

Hello David.

I phoned earlier about the car.

Looks all right.

Anything I should know about?

Yes, the interior is a bit shabby, but you
can get replacement loose covers for those.

It would be nice if it had leather.

It would be lovely if it had leather.

I don't know if I can't like this.

It smells right.

I like smelling cars.

It smells right.

Is that what it's sitting on?

Yes, certainly.

Carry on.

Lovely.

Look at that.

Nice and comfortable.

185,000 miles though.

That's a worry day, isn't it?

No, not with us all.

Right, so what have we got?

We've got electric sunroof.

Wow, that's good.

Still works up all these years.

Electric windows, when you go and see a car,
always push, prod and poke every button.

Well, it's just as well.

Yeah, well, it's just as well because that
window doesn't work, does it?

No.

All that one.

It sounds all right, doesn't it?

Yeah, it sounds all right.

It's a nice one.

Nice and throaty.

A tiny little bit of tap it in,
but that's on start-up.

It's always a good idea if you're going to
go and see a car.

If you've got a mate with you,
get him to start it up and you stand by

the back and check for any blue smoke
coming out of the exhaust.

But no, this sounds fine.

It's just got a little tap it noise.

Doesn't worry me too much.

Right, 16 valve, Saab engine.

Yeah, it looks all right.

Another thing as well to check when you
come and look at a car like this,

they run at very high pressure,
so you want to make sure you test the

hoses, squeeze them,
make sure there's more

running for them, make
sure they get in hot.

One of these hoses pop,
you may think they're only a

couple of quid, but they
cost a fortune to replace.

Now, David Jewell cluttered onto this like
it's the crown jewels.

Oh, this is the full service history.

And is it complete?

Absolutely, right from day one.

Yeah, look at that blimey, 584 quid just
spent on it.

Yes.

169 quid, the list goes on.

It all looks in order, mapping with the
bodywork, disappointed with the interior,

but a drive.

I need to have a quick drive with it.

Now, the first thing to check out for,
really, is power delivery.

You want to make sure the car's got the
right oomph to get you off the line.

So hold it in second gear, put your foot
down, look at the turbo gauge.

It's got a zing to the engine,
but it's got a very, very

low throttle response,
which is a bit of a worry to me.

It's not picking up as you'd expect the
turbo to.

How they usually work is there's nothing,
nothing, nothing, and then all of a sudden

it's like a hurricane comes
washing through the car and it

bolts you along, and this has
got a very, very slow pickup.

The other thing to check out for,
really, is that these cars, with a turbo,

they get accelerated hard and then they
brake very hard to try and slow them down.

So lighten your hands on the steering
wheel, get a nice straight piece of road,

make sure there's nobody around you, and
then give a good hard stamp on the brakes.

If the car brakes in a straight line,
then the chances are everything underneath

is running true and straight because,
being a soft 900 turbo, it could have

visited the wrong side of a bush once or
twice in its life, or it could have been

round a lamco, so you want to make sure
that it's nice and straight.

At the moment I can hear a
definite burble coming from the rear,

which sounds to me like it's
got a blow in the rear exhaust.

Now, these little niggly things
may sound like they're nothing,

but they can cost a fortune,
especially on a car like this.

But having said all that, it's got a lot
going for it.

It's the best colour for a Saab.

Black, and it feels like a good,
solid motor.

It all comes down to the price now.

Let's see if David is prepared to deal.

It was all right, David, to be honest with
you.

Yeah, it weren't too bad at all.

It's good.

Yeah, I mean, it's a fair cut.

Just a couple of things that are bothering
me.

It was just lacking in power.

I'm a little bit worried about it because
it could be the turbo, but then saying

that, it could be just like a leaky hose
or head gasket or something like that.

The interior is tatty, the rear exhaust is
blowing.

Don't worry, it's not all doom and gloom.

The rear exhaust is blowing.

You want 750, I was going to say 550.

Try and get a couple of hundred quid off.

Far too low.

Come on, David, have a deal with me.

How about 575?

Because I know that I've got to spend a
couple of hundred quid on it.

Come and do a deal with me.

575.

Come and hold your hand out.

600 quid.

Lovely.

Thank you.

Nice one.

Result.

A black Saab 900 turbo with a clean body
and lots of history for just 600 nica.

I'm pleased as punch, but what will my
mechanic, Ed, make of it?

He's the one who can really tell if I've
bought a peach or a lemon.

Well, Ed, first impressions?

I think this is really, really cool.

It's an old car.

It's a B-Rage, so it's a very old car,
really.

But it's in really, really, really good
nick.

It looks very shiny, very nice.

Yeah, I was delighted with it.

It's black, it's got alloy wheels,
it makes all the right noises.

It's got that big spoiler on the back.

Yeah, I'm over the moon.

There are a couple of things that are
absolutely brilliant about this car.

The first of which is this bodywork.

That's really good.

I reckon all we need is a wash and a bit
of a wax and that'd be fine.

Excellent.

I was a tiny bit worried about the
interior.

It's looking a bit painted.

Well, it's not that bad.

I mean, you know, for the age of the car,
it's pretty good, Nick.

But I'll tell you what would be really
lovely is a leather interior.

That'd be very special.

I mean, it might be a little bit
expensive.

It'll take a while to put in, but I think
it'd really improve the value of the car.

If we can find one.

Now, the other thing as well was the
electric windows don't appear to be working.

See, that normally fixes it.

It sounds like something's clicking,
so if the solenoid's okay, it must be

either a loose connection in here,
which would be nice and easy to fix,

or it could be the motor itself,
which could be a bit more expensive.

It's going to be a couple of hours to fix,
so we'll see how we go with that.

Now, while you're here, the exhaust was
blowing on the test drive.

Like that.

You ready?

So, what's the verdict down there?

I think it's just the back box is blowing.

It's all the bits inside.

It sounds really rattly, so we'll be fine.

We'll just change it over.

Okay, okay.

On the test drive, a
couple of things worried

me, but it's not got that
punch that I'd expect.

Well, it could be anything.

I hope it isn't the turbo, because that
could be expensive and a bit hassle-y.

But, you know, we'll have a look and see
what...

Okay, and the other thing as well,
because it is a car that goes...

It goes really fast.

You need to brake quite heavily.

It's handy.

And the brakes are faded.

I mean, the pedal never went all the way
down to the floor, but there was

definitely something wrong with the
brakes.

Okay, we'll have a look at... Again,
it's one of those things.

It could be really simple.

Just beat it through and it'd be fine.

But we'll have to check that out as well.

Okay.

Alright, so you can have a look at the
brakes.

You can have a look at the power delivery.

Have a look at the interior.

It'd be nice if we can find the interior
for it.

And the pesky windows.

Those pesky electric windows.

They have to work.

Okay.

Yes.

Cool.

Here's the key.

Good luck with it, Ed.

Thanks so much.

I'll come and catch up with you and see
you getting on with it.

Alright.

See you later.

See you later.

That's the troubleshooting done.

Join us after the break when Ed gets busy
with the spanners.

Welcome back.

This is our Saab 900 Turbo.

The challenge was to buy and restore a car
like this for a grand.

I found this solid runner for £600 which
leaves Ed just £400 to spend on doing it up.

Will he be able to turn
our Saab 900 into a sexy

Swede once again so I
can sell it on for a profit?

So here we are back at the workshop.

This is where it's all going to happen.

This is where the restoration begins.

The Saab is here.

The drive down was a little scary.

The brakes a bit dodgy and this is a
powerful car.

It needs to stop as well as it goes.

So the first job, take
the wheels off, have

a look at the brakes
and see what he's doing.

Now we're lucky enough to have a nice big
two post lift.

If all you've got is a trolley jack,
just remember that ground has to be level

and flat and the car,
when it's lifted up, needs

to be put on axle stands
to make sure it's secure.

OK, these wheel nuts are now finger tight
so I'm just going to take off the last one

here and remove the wheel which hopefully
should reveal a disc brake and it does.

And straight away we can see here there's
some pretty bad grooving and scoring

actually in the disc
and it's very very thin

as well which is
obviously very badly worn.

When we look to the caliper we can also
see the pads pretty worn too so we're

going to need to replace all of this to
make sure that it's safe to drive.

This is the front brake
caliper which houses the brake

pads which then work on the
disc to actually slow the car.

On our Saab it has a handbrake mechanism
on this front caliper.

I've released that so I can now get out
the pads.

I need to remove a few little bits and
pieces to get out of them.

There goes an R-clip.

Just pull that out there and we're going
to use a spring at the same time.

And inside here we should get the pads
out.

It can be a little sticky.

OK.

Now this pad isn't that bad but you can
see it's got quite a lot of wear.

If we compare this to a normal one,
quite a difference in thickness.

And also it's wearing
quite unevenly so it's

a good thing that we're
changing these over.

Now I'll try and get the other one out.

There we go.

Again, even more wear.

And this one is almost down to the metal
which is very dangerous.

Loosen the retaining bolts and the caliper
can easily be removed from the disc.

So we remove this.

This is a bungee cable.

The top tip at the moment
is we're going to have to

support the caliper to stop
the strain on the brake pipes.

Getting the disc off is really easy.

We just undo the two retaining screws.

And like this.

Give it a bit of a tap with a hammer.

And off it pops.

Look at that, that is nasty.

Now we come to the tricky bit.

We have to put the pads back into the
caliper.

Of course now they're much, much thicker.

So we have to wind back the piston inside
the caliper.

You can use a special tool or just a pair
of pliers if you can get away with it.

There we go.

And we're lucky.

We can get away with this.

It's going in quite nicely.

Albeit slowly.

OK, we've managed to wind that clockwise
all the way back in.

I was really worried about that job but
it's perfect.

I'm just cleaning off the sticky substance
that comes when you buy a brand new disc.

It's protective coating to keep the
surface unrusty.

But obviously it doesn't really help you
stopping because it's very greasy.

But while we're here,
we can have a look at the

original disc which is
really, really rather nasty.

You can see it's all warped and got lines
on all over it.

It's just disgusting really.

This is a nice new fat shiny one.

Last piece of the puzzle, the pads.

Nice fresh thick new ones.

Hopefully they'll just slot straight into
position.

OK, that's the second pad in.

All we've got to do now is just make sure
that the wheel is still free to move.

Otherwise I'm not going to be going
anywhere quickly.

Which it is.

So now I just have to
put the pins back in, put

the wheel on and get
on with the other brakes.

If you're changing the discs
and pads on the near side of

the car, then you must also
change them on the off side.

This makes sure that when you brake,
the car doesn't pull to one side.

To be 100% safe, I'm also replacing the
rear brakes.

The parts aren't that expensive for a job
like this.

Only about 70 quid.

But by doing it myself, I'm making a huge
saving.

If I took this job to the high street
garage, it could cost as much as £400.

An important point, once
the car is back on the

ground, you must remember
to tighten your wheel nuts.

And put the cap on.

And that's the brakes done.

So on with the next job.

The Saab 900 Turbo is a
quality car and they're normally

really reliable, but they
do have an Achilles heel.

When they get to this kind of age,
the electric windows tend to fail.

Now, Mike, of course, has
got us a classic example

of this, and these electric
windows just don't work.

Now, because it's an electrical problem,
it can be quite hard to fix, and it might

even be the reason this car was up for
sale.

The first thing we're
going to have to do

is to find out where
exactly the problem is.

There are two simple things we can try.

First of all, the switches themselves.

I'll just turn the ignition on.

Now, I can hear a clunking,
which means that the fault

isn't with the switches, so it
could be with a blown fuse.

The window regulator is fuse number 11,
so let's have a look in here.

OK, well, you can see from this that the
fuse is perfectly intact.

Unfortunately, this means it isn't a quick
fix and it could get expensive.

The only way I'm going to find out what the
problem is is by getting inside the door.

Behind here is the electric window winder.

Now, this consists of a mechanism,
kind of like a scissor, which lifts the

window up and down, and attached to that
is a motor which drives that mechanism.

Now, hopefully, the fault is with the motor
because that's the cheapest thing to fix.

A useful tip is to take the window into
position to stop it falling into the door

and also makes it a lot easier to put back
together again.

I'm now ready to take the
window winder out of the

door, but this is a really
important safety point.

There's lots of metal in here,
a scissor mechanism, so just be really

careful with your fingers and just take
your time.

Voila!

This is a brand-new motor.

I'm now going to connect it to the wiring
limb of the car.

If that works, then we know the old motor
was faulty.

That's a result.

I reckon if you put that into the
regulator, we'll have working windows.

A new window winding motor costs around
£60.

A new regulator costs significantly more,
but some companies do rebuild them,

and you can buy a refurbished second-hand
one for around £40.

Fantastic.

The regulator works, which means the motor
was at fault.

I can now put this back in the door.

Before I put the door card on, it's worth
checking to make sure the window goes down.

Which it does.

And up.

Hurrah!

All the way, both ways.

I can now put everything back together
again and get on with the other side.

A quick troubleshoot of
the driver's side electric

window so that the
motor here was at fault too.

So once again, it's
a case of carefully

stripping the door and
replacing the dead part.

This is a fiddly and time-consuming job,
but it makes such a difference to the

experience of driving the car that it's
really worth the effort.

Well, that's the electric
windows fixed, so at least

now it won't be like driving
around in a Swedish sauna.

It's been a while since I've seen Ed and
our Saab 900 Turbo.

I'm dead excited about
seeing him, because he should

be halfway through the
restoration project by now.

Let's see how he's really getting on.

Ed.

How are you doing?

How are you doing?

Good to see you again.

Good to see you.

Been working hard.

It doesn't look like you, F.

Well, no, this car was never about
external stuff.

It was all the mechanical things.

Well, I would say that,
because on the face of

it, it don't look like
you've done a thing to it.

Come here, underneath here.

Dirty alloy.

Behind that is a nice shiny new disc and a
set of pads.

And we have the same on the back wheel and
the other two as well.

Hard work?

It was quite hard work, but it's well worth
it, because it now stops, which is nice.

Good.

So it's a nice safe car.

It is indeed a safe car, but also it's a
safe car with nice electric windows.

You kidding?

Did you get working?

I did indeed.

We now have working windows.

I don't believe it.

Look at that.

Fantastic, both sides.

Of course, a matching set.

Well done.

So far, we spent £190 on parts.

The brake rebuild come to a cheap £70.

Electric window motors were only £120 for
two.

That leaves us £210 in the pot.

Now, when I turned up earlier,
it looked like Ed hadn't done any work.

But he has.

He's fitted with the
electrics and got the window

motors working, and he's
overhauled the brakes.

But in my opinion, what will really
transform this car is a nice new interior.

So join us next time when I'm on the hunt
for some leather seats and hopefully Ed

would have thrown a bucket of water over
our Saab 900 Turbo.

We'll see you again on Wheeler Dealers.