Dear Tom and Ray:

Here's another Saab story for you! My girlfriend has a 1986 900 non-turbo. It starts fine, idles for a while, then stalls. If you try to start it, the battery just acts dead. If you jump start it, it will run fine until you remove the jumper cables, then it stalls again. The gauges and digital displays jump around just before it stalls, with the voltage jumping from 5v to 27v. The alternator was replaced a year ago. Please help me! -- John

Ray: While it could be another bad alternator, it's more likely to be a rare Swedish syndrome that Saabs suffer from called "ground wire burnout." The ground wire that runs from the body of the alternator to the engine block somehow burns itself to a crisp. And without that ground, the alternator won't charge, and the car won't run.

Tom: We see this a lot when we're removing Saab alternators. You go to remove the ground wire, and it just crumbles. So we usually replace it with several ground wires. We gang them together and that seems to give them more staying power.

Ray: If a new ground wire doesn't fix it, then ask your girlfriend if you can see the original dealer invoice for this car. She may have inadvertently ordered Saab's Poltergeist Package. It didn't sell very well in '85, so in '86, they grouped it together with the sunroof and power antenna.

Everybody wants a new car. But from a purely financial point of view, there is no question that buying a used car is always cheaper, even in the long run. To learn more, order Tom and Ray's pamphlet How to Buy a Used Car: Things That Detroit and Tokyo Don't Want You to Know. To order, send (check or money order) to Ruin, P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. You can also order online.

© 1996 by Tom and Ray Magliozzi and Doug Berman Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.

Back to the June 1996 index