My main saab, a 1995 9000 Aero, has a difficult time getting into reverse. I replaced the shift linkage, the shifter bushings, and aligned the shift linkage. No good, the car still can't reliably find reverse. The problem is internal to the transmission. I searched the internet for replacement transmissions, checking ebay, salvage yards, and professional refurb operations. The cheapest I could find a good working transmission was about $1,500, and this did not include any sort of warranty. For most people that might be the end of a car that only cost $2400 to begin with. Not me. Instead I decided to dig myself deeper into the hole by buying a parts car. Honestly I wish I had bought a parts car right off the bat. I cant tell you how many stupid pidley little things I replaced already on the saab. Things like interior lighting, nuts and bolts, door handles, mirrors, a door, etc. I would have already paid for the parts car if I had purchased one right away. Anyways, I needed a post 1993 saab 9000 that had a good transmission. Anything else, like being black or having a full pressure turbo, was just icing on the cake. Thanks to craigslist I found a 1994 scarab green 9000 aero in DC. The price was $900, a little higher than I wanted to pay however it WAS an aero so every single part was interchangable! Not only that, I could drive it home rather than having to trailer it as was necessary for a lot of the other cars I was looking at. The transmission in this car is good enough. This car is far from perfect. It has lots and lots of problems. Part of the exhaust had fallen off, though it was still in the trunk and included in the sale :) Driving it home was a little nerve racking. The engine likes to stutter and the car completely died on me twice. Well sort of died, its like someone hit the reset switch. Everything turned off for half a second then came back on. This of course tripped the anti theft protection on the stereo. As expected the anti theft code you have to type in is no where to be found in the car. Looks like that is the end of that radio. Before removing any parts from the car I made sure to drive the car around for a while to learn about all its issues. This way I would know what parts I could use and which I should avoid. Even with all of its problems this car is still fun to drive. It is especially fun to drive a car you dont care about at all. In the short time I have driven this car I have abused it far more than most other cars I have owned.

Purchase Price

$900

Parts removed to date - Money Saved

3/28/09 - Idler Pulley - $35
4/30/10 - Serpentine Tensioner - $200
4/30/10 - OEM Toolkit - $50