Afternoon STW mechanics

The saga of my fairly rubbish ’96 Saab 900 convertible rumbles on.

From cold the gearbox, when put into drive, clunks a little then refuses to go into the first 3 gears, the ‘check gearbox’ light comes on on the dash and I can pull away in 4th (slowly). If I drive for a few hundred metres, stop and restart the engine it comes back with all the gears working fine. I’ve had the gearbox oil replaced with no effect.

The MOT last week picked up that the gearbox mount has a lot of play in it and needs replacing. So my question is, is it likely that the rudimentary computer knows this and is trying to reduce the stress on the gearbox by making me pull away slowly in a high gear? And is replacing the mount likely to make my car dandy again?

Thanks everyone

Any of the evening types have any info?

Sounds like the gearbox doesnt know what its doing, so it goes
into limp mode. Perhaps you need to get it to a saab specialist?
Btw you bought an automatic convertible? Are you American AND a hairdresser? 😆

Huws – Not sure where in the country you are – if you live anywhere near Carlisle, it may be worth giving these guys a call – http://www.mgmmotors-cumbria.co.uk/.
Alternatively Abbott Racing know Saabs inside out http://www.abbottracing.net/

you bought an automatic convertible? Are you American AND a hairdresser?

Hangs head in shame. I won’t even bother trying to defend myself. 😳

Might be time to get it looked at instead of just leaving it parked up assuming it’s broken.

you may find its not worth fixing…

Cheers AD, both a little far from me unfortunately.

B R, almost certainly, but I’m a sucker for spending far too much on awful cars.

My 93 turbo auto did the same, limp mode means take me to a hospital quick, new gearbox cost me £4k, good luck.

I had the same problem (spending far too much that is!) with old Saabs – I ran a modified Saab Carlsson for 3 years – bought for £3k, spent £7.5K keeping it on the road (and in front tyres…) before sanity prevailed.

Still miss it though.

I would have any wiring connected to the gearbox carefully checked , as well as the engine earth cable , if the mounts are soft the wiring could be damaged, from the symptom of the fault clearing after driving abit , this is enough to fret earth cable to provide fresh earth for a while.
Quick way to do this is to use a jump lead as extra test earth.

Also try battery swap , as low voltage also affects auto .

I’m just surprised that the limp mode stops when you drive 100m and restart the engine. I can leave it for 5+ hours in freezing weather too and it will start and run fine with all gears.

I’m hoping not to get properly sucked into spending massive piles of cash but it’s difficult as it’s an awful lot of fun.