My 92 saab 900 reverse gear is broken. it just grinds. do i need a new tranny? what would be a typical cost for transmission + installation?
My 1992 saab 900 reverse gear has been slipping out if not held in for some time now. recently, this has gotten worse and now it just grinds, no power. The other (forward) gears are great, and the rest of the car is in great shape as well. 189k miles. I live in oregon. what should i expect to pay in order to be able to go backwards?
I had a 1994 Saab 900 convertible with the same problem. Got to the point where there was no more reverse. I sold the car really cheap. The cost to repair the problem is over $2000.00 if you can find a place to do the work. The engine has to be removed from the car because the transmission is mounted below it and it comes out as one unit. I do love the classic 900 convertibles. I recently purchased a 1992 with automatic. They are more reliable than the 5 speeds but still have issues. Also the auto is only a 3 speed and it revs on the highway; like driving the manual trans in 4th gear only. The transmissions/drivetrains have always been the weak point of the Saab 900's.
Hey, I have a 92 900 turbo, have had the same issue for two years, also, shifting was getting really sticky and difficult...so much so that I actually broke the shifter rod by continually muscling it into gear...violently... I do wish I had the car in good shape... so I bought a new transmission and planned to drive the car a few hours away to a saab place... then, while getting the shifter in, and leaving the car sit outside for a couple weeks with mechanics that couldn't do anything for me... things really started to go... I tried to drive the car home with 3rd and 4th gears only...the car stopped and wouldn't start again, I lost power and it shut down...thought I ran out of gas but it didn't start when I put gas in... Anyway...I feel your pain about loving this car and wanting to restore it... I guess I just hope somebody is willing to pay the $6000 + that I will probably have spent on the car if I try to sell it.... in any case, at least we have style
ha, I wrote the above post two years ago, now I'm back here looking for help with saab 900 transmission problems ;-( lol
Reverse is a weak link for these cars. IF you get it dealt with early you can often just do a fork modification which is cheap and easy, but if you wait until you have little to no reverse you will need either a pinion, which if you are careful can be swapped out in 3-4 hours buy removing the differential and pulling the shaft while the power unit is in the car. If the reverse gear is also trashed you have to pull the whole engine and transmission, expect this to be at least $4K for a complete fix.
Saab 900, yes I had the same issue with a 8 valve saab 900- second version (round fenders). My 4 speed make lots of noise, so I do not use it. I can run without yours doliveraf@gmail.com Dave
