high miles vehicles...

[philr]

Roger, When I talked about Olds engine problems, I was first thinking about their 350 Diesels... I'd take any Buick engine before one of these! Buick 455 engines had better heads than Olds 455, at least in the early seventies...

 

[iheartmaytag]

vols

Your saving grace was that the power pole snapped and you didn't stop abruptly. 120MPH is only about 90 MPH above that car's designed crash worthiness and it scored moderate at that level.

You were very lucky. Was Lex Luther with you, and did Lois take pictures for the Daily Planet? Really, I'm glad you are ok. [this post was last edited: 2/5/2012-21:36]

 

[hydralique]

"Buick 455 engines had better heads than Olds 455"

 

Yeah, but either one is gonna breathe better than a nailhead! On the other hand if the main priority is just tons 'o torque with which to slosh a Dynaflow around then the nailhead is probably more than adequate.

 

Those old Saab fours are really quite stout, my '87 900T was still running great at 160K + and using no oil. Unfortunately at around the same time the a/c quit, headliner fell, clutch or gearbox began to make some very strange noises, and then it was rear-ended. The hit was minor but did kink the fenders slightly and made the hatch hard to open and combined with the other issues I decided agaist repairing it. From what I can tell, gearbox problems are what usually kill old Saabs. The Borg-Warner automatics used in the 900 are typical B-W junk, and although the ZF in the 9000 is somewhat better it can be fiendishly expensive to fix if it ever goes bad. Manuals are stronger, but even those are a little weak in 900s. Overall though they are good cars.