Is my turbo bad?
 

Hello I have a 2001 9-3 with 113k miles on it. I just relocated and drove 1000 miles from Illinois to Colorado and notice a sharp decrease in performance. The turbo gauge only stays within the 1st bracket white upon acceleration. I didnt have this issue before the trip so am wondering is the turbo bad or could it just be something minor? Any ideas and also what would i be looking at for costs? I love my saab and have had 113K trouble free miles thus far. Thanks

I had the waste gate linkage on the turbo come disconnected. Seems simple except the waste gate rotated 180 degrees out and was stuck. To fix it I needed to drop the exhaust and free the waste gate, install a new E clip and it works fine now.

Thanks!

That is exactly what it was :)

The wastegate clip snapped off so i only needed a circlip to fix. Luckily the wastegate didnt rotate 180 degrees since i can see what your saying on how time consuming it becomes to fix it. No telling how long i have been losing power because my car now runs like the day i drove it off the showroom.

Much appreciated Wayne

Well, I am brand new to this forum and new to Saab's, but I am not new to the turbo charged car. I drove a GTI for the past 5 years, with everything except the oil changes DIY. The gauge on my Saab appears that the white or first tier is actually when the car is running with the accelerator not pressed, with my GTI this was 22 pounds of vacuum. To me it sounds like you have a leak in your vacuum lines. It happened to me when I bought my GTI the previous owner had installed a boost controller and routed the lines to close to the turbo, after a trip SC->VA and back, the line melted. With a hole in one of your vacuum lines, depending on how bad the break it, the car will either not build any boost at all or at a much lower rate. The easiest test I know of to look for this is a boost test, or vacuum pressure test. They have called it the vacuum pressure test down here in MS but then again... yeah. Either way, essentially all that happens is you hook up one of the vacuum lines to air pressure and listen for a leak. Iden the leak and fix the line. It was only 15 buck for my GTI. I am not as familiar with the Saab so who knows. It may not be this, it certainly could be other problems but this is, imo the most likely problem and easiest to fix. If your turbo locked up or various other problems... you would probably notice other things going wrong... like.... it not driving. Those are just my two cents.