My son's 2000 or so Saab will crank over but not fire. He drove it to the store and when he came out it would not start. If I tow him over to autozone can they plug in and see what is wrong with it?

It has a loud exhaust and I don't know if it still has its cat or not.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Yep, most places will do it and lots of shops will as well. As long as the obdii has power you should be able to read the stored codes. Also I'd highly recommend an app and dongle, it only costs about $30 total and gives you complete visibility over just about all engine parameters.


Sent from an abacus

__________________
TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Thanks!

So where can you get this app and dongle?

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

dongle from amazon and app from google.

btw - is this saab a turbo or NA engine?

__________________
2012 BMW X5 (Beef + Granite suspension model)

1995 E300D - The original humming machine (consumed by Flood 2017)
2000 E320 - The evolution (consumed by flood 2017)

Autozone read my 99 E300's codes perfectly and gave me the printout when I was In Flagstaff, AZ. 4-years ago.

__________________
'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

NA I believe.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

App and dongle are easy to get.

Getting Tom to own/use a smartphone to make use of the app, well, that might be a challenge

__________________
1961 220b: first project car - sold.
2000 CLK 430: first modern Benz - sold.
2001 CLK 55: OMG the torque!!! - sold
1972 280SE 4.5: Baby Gustav
1991 300TE 4Matic: Gretel the Snow Bunny - sold
1978 300SD: Katz the Free Man - given away
1980 Redhead: Darling Wife

Guilty....though my son has a smart phone I think.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Couldn't you also do it via laptop? I don't have a smartphone, either...

__________________
"Senior Luna, your sense of humor is still loco... but we love it, anyway." -rickymay ____ "Your sense of humor is still loco... " -MBeige ____ "Señor Luna, your sense of humor is quite järjetön" -Delibes

1982 300SD -- 211k, Texas car, tranny issues ____ 1979 240D 4-speed 234k -- turbo and tuned IP, third world taxi hot rod

2 Samuel 12:13: "David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die."

I did a lot of this homework about 2 years ago for my TDI (apparently, 2001 TDI's are not OBD2 compliant...)

So let me offer some specifics:

App - GO on google play and download an app called "Torque Lite" -, its the free version of "Torque" - and will do everything you need for scanning codes (and more...)

dongle : I like this one : BAFX Products® - Bluetooth OBD2 Reader for Android
by BAFX products. It works on every car I've tried it on (my '01 TDI, 2013 Honda van, '09 Kia, '01 Dodge truck) If you dig deep you'll find that there are 5 or 7 different protocols that could be used by an OBD2 compliant vehicle - this one grabs them all. (some cheaper ones dont...).

The BAFX dongle uses bluetooth, Torque uses android, if you have an iphone or an android phone without bluetooth(???) I cannot help you. I'm sure that there are similar apps for iphone, but I cant vouch for any.

To actually scan codes, plug the dongle into the car, turn the key on and tell your phone to look for bluetooth devices - after a bit it should find one called "OBDII", pair to it (i think the code is 1234...it says in the papers that come with the dongle) then run the torque app. I think that torque will work out of hte box, but you might have to go to the settings page and tell it to use the 'adapter' called "OBDII"
There is a 'scan codes" button when you first run torque - that'll tell you what its saying.

Hope this helps.

-John

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)

^ iPhone requires a wifi dongle, not Bluetooth. I use an app called dashcommand which works great. Also, any car built after 1996 is required to be obdii compliant.


Sent from an abacus

__________________
TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Your problem may be that it is a SAAB and that is not a joke.

These cars were prone to a failure of the neutral safety switch. Do a bit of Google work on this and you will see all sorts of ways to easily test for this condition.

And if that's the problem there are also ways to wire around it. A new switch is over $500 and they are tough to install.

Used ones are normally available on Ebay for around $100. They can also be rebuilt but this is quite tricky and very easy to mess up.

But there are instructions on SAAB forums on how this can be done.

Would a stick equipped car have a neutral switch?

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Yep. Keeps you from cranking the starter while in gear and clutch pedal not depressed.

Sent from my LG-D800 using Tapatalk

__________________
1961 220b: first project car - sold.
2000 CLK 430: first modern Benz - sold.
2001 CLK 55: OMG the torque!!! - sold
1972 280SE 4.5: Baby Gustav
1991 300TE 4Matic: Gretel the Snow Bunny - sold
1978 300SD: Katz the Free Man - given away
1980 Redhead: Darling Wife

They are hardwired around this from the factory.

In manual cars the crank position sensor is usually what causes a no start condition.