A Real Saab Story...

Our 1993 900 S had met its fate. A snapped Panhard rod, failing alternator bushings, and rust that had claimed damn near the entire underside of the car had finally taken its toll. After purchasing a much nicer 1993 900 Turbo a few months ago, we decided that the 900 S, nicknamed "Crusty," would have to go after scavenging some necessary parts off of it.

We searched a few weeks for takers, and eventually sold it to our friend Eric Nelson, whom I had gotten 99 parts from a month prior. We arranged a drop off date, and decided to drive 2.5 hours all the way to East Longmeadow, MA to drop the car off. We decided to take a much more modern Toyota Corolla to trail Crusty in the event anything happened, and so we had a car to get ourselves back home. 

The trip went swell. Crusty, despite its rust, still drove exceptionally well for a car with over 230,000 miles on the clock. However, the fuel gauge didn't work. We had removed the sending unit to donate to the Turbo, and Crusty had an estimated 4 gallons in the tank upon our departure from Wareham, MA at the start of the trip. 

We were cruising down route 6, when all of a sudden, Crusty pulled off to a siding, stopping. Daniel got out, breaking the news that he had run out of fuel. Well, that wasn't a problem. We had passed a gas station about a mile back, so we'd just fill a gas can and set off again. We'd soon learn that running out of fuel was not what killed us. 

We filled the car with two gallons of gas, and tried starting. Nothing. It cranked and cranked, and finally fired, but sounded like it was running on two cylinders. Something was up. So, we drove back to the gas station to fill up our can, and try again. 

We dumped in two more gallons into Crusty, in the hopes that more fuel would help it start. We tried again. Crank, crank, crrrrraaannkkkk. The motor sighed and coughed to a halt. No fuel getting to the motor meant that our fuel pump wasn't working right. 

We pulled the rear carpet up in the trunk, revealing the fuel pump. One of us cranked the motor, while the other listened closely for any noise from the pump. Crank... crank... crankkkkkk. Sigh, cough, nothing. The pump was officially toast. 

Well, that sealed Crusty's fate. Dead on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere. We decided the best move was to call Triple A. We weren't moving the car out of the siding ourselves, and we damn sure weren't going to return home. We were also 20 miles away from Eric's house! Why quit now!?

Since Crusty died in the middle of nowhere, specifically Ashmont, Connecticut, there were limited tow trucks available. Triple A said they'd have a truck out to us in about a half hour. Fantastic! We'd be back on our journey in no time! 

A half hour came and went. No sign of a truck. 45 minutes, no truck. Finally, it had been an hour, and no truck had passed. We contacted the Triple A agency to see if there was an update on our case. They responded back that it would be another hour. Rats. 

We called it quits on waiting on the side of the road, and headed to a local Moe's to eat something. We hadn't eaten all day, and both of us had grown quite irritated due to the ongoing situation with Crusty and our lack of sustenance. 

Fortunately, this killed a lot of waiting time, and when we got back to Crusty, there was only about 15-20 minutes of waiting left for the tow truck to arrive. It finally did, and we were able to get moving... four hours later. 

Crusty was delivered to Eric's house, to become a future ice racer. We drove home, tired, but laughing about our debacle. It was a SAAB story after all, but we had fun and made the most of our minor setback on an otherwise nice Sunday afternoon. And that, my friends, is what made this a story worth telling.