Final drive

So, we now know why the previous owner of our Saab TTiD estate sold it! When we collected the car from BCA Blackbushe last year, we noticed how it was intermittently smoking from both exhaust tailpipes – and then stopped. Since then, it’s done the same party trick another five or six times randomly and the last time but one, I checked the oil level and found it to be way over maximum. This meant I had to do an emergency oil drain to prevent it from running-on and blowing itself up. I drained nearly a litre out to bring the level down to between MIN and MAX. The engine was then given another oil and filter change but we found that with the specified 4.25 litres of oil, the dipstick reading was too high – about three-quarters of a litre was drained out to bring it to 2mm below the MAX.

With that done, I needed to do a longish trip to see if the oil level would rise again. I took a trip down to Wolverhampton (about 65 miles from me) and it drove just fine without any smoking episodes. The journey back however…

Going limp

I was 15 miles into the drive back when the ‘reduced performance’ message flagged-up. I pulled in, switched-off and had a quick look under the bonnet – nothing falling off but the oil now at ‘MAX’. I pulled out onto the A38 and got up to speed before engaging the cruise control but a few miles on it was obvious all