[California Saab Tuner]

I was just driving the Viggen a short while ago. Noticed it felt very strong. Only trouble is after driving for about 15 minutes or so the power seemed to fade off slightly. I had the accellerometer hooked up and the readings were lower so I know it's not just in my head. But I'm wondering if anyone else notices a significant power difference between a recently warmed up car, and a car that has been warmed up and driven for a while (even if it's relatively cool outside). Also ... another problem has arisen. The gearbox has always been noisy shifting, most that I've driven are. But it made a very un-natural noise three or four times when starting from a dead stop. Like a quick squeek, or scrape. It sounded something nasty like a bearing scraping, but could have been the shift linkage possibly getting lose when the engine torques and scraping something. I'm not sure. Has anyone experienced something similar with their 9-3? I'm kind of concerned the power drop off could be as the gearbox warms up as that takes much longer to warm up than the engine, and the power loss coincides right about at the time the gearbox should be reaching full temp. I'm really starting to get worried. Hopefully the gearbox isn't having issues ... would be rather bad timing. Thanks for any help!

 

[Aero]

Is the gearbox in a Viggen the same as other 9-3's?

My gearbox seems to make a noticeable 'scraping' noise when the car is neither accelerating nor decelerating - i.e. a constant speed is being maintained perhaps with the lightest of throttle. Occasionally it makes a similar noise when labouring in gear.

I've had similar gearbox noises in my two previous (non-Saab) cars, neither of which were resolved by the dealers (in fact further problems arose after attempted repairs

). I am therefore reluctant to go down this route again if the problem isn't getting worse. Perhaps gearboxes make noises?

 

[California Saab Tuner]

It's the standing start noise that has me worried, I can even "feel" the noise in the shifter. Which is slightly disturbing. Hoping it's just the linkage needing a lube. *crosses fingers* As for warmed up power loss, I know that surface temps in the combustion chamber depend on lots of things besides engine temp, and that the gauge on the display probably doesn't give a completely accurate reading for temp. So could just be the engine temp getting hotter and causing the boost to retard. But this whole deal has just got me slightly worried.

Oh and the gearbox I believe is the same casting as the other 9-3s with the same linkage, but with 9-5 Aero internals. That's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong.