Saab smoking

[Shondel79]

Ok i just had a question. I just bought a 2007 9-3 2.0t the guy said it flooded on him thats why he dropped the price i drove it around it ran great. I drove it from Utah to Idaho the next day after work i went to start it and it reeked of gas finally got it started it did that off and on for a few weeks now that its colder it smokes like crazy till its warm then the smoking goes away. A check engine light popped on finally so i had it checked it had a misfire in cylinder number one and a O2 sensor not detected code and it had repeating codes for open circuit to injector i think thats what it was. Anyways all my fluids antifreeze oil are not moving its just fuel could the O2 sensors make it smoke like that? And also do you think i have a bad injector for them codes to repeat?

[swisssaabist]

what is the color of smoke ?? white or blue-grey'ish ? smoke at cold start ? smoke smell gasoline ?? do you taking out plugs ??

[Digger]

Open circuit to injector could be bad injector, wire harness or engine controller, but only a bad injector will feed raw gas to the engine when the key is off. When everything is working like it should, you have to work at flooding one of these engines. A stuck full open injector can put enough gas into a cylinder to hydro lock an engine while you have the key on to read codes and YES white smoke will come from over fueling an engine and Yes you have at least one really bad injector and with an injector this bad better replace all 4 and the fuel filter too.

Takes about 5 minutes more to replace all four than it does to change one. New injectors for this engine aren't cheap, but they can be if you have the tools to reprogram for performance parts. That's a can of worms you may want to avoid, I thought about it and went with flow matched remans, a few dollars more than the brand new performance part, but you don't need to be a computer science major automotive engineer to install these yourself.

Replacing the O2 sensor, you might need to and if you have an emissions test coming with the title transfer do that with the injector replacement. Odds are your O2 sensor is so soaked with raw gas that it can't work and if it hasn't been to soaked for to long, it might dry out and start working again after a couple hundred miles of driving. Pouring raw gas down the pipe will eventually ruin a catalytic converter, put enough raw gas down the pipe and you can melt down the biscuit, turn the case into glowing hot metal and set your carpet on fire. I tell you this because I don't want you to leave a bad O2 in place because you got the car running good with new injectors. The O2 tells the computer how much unburned gas is going down the pipe and if the computer doesn't know it's sending to much, it keeps on sending to much and you're already lucky that didn't have any serious trouble on your cross country drive home.

Anytime you flood an engine you should replace the spark plugs, they don't work right wet, they are part of your knock sensor circuit and they take forever to properly dry after they have been soaked with gas.

[Shondel79]

Awesome i didnt want to replace anything till i did some digging. Thanks ill replace all the injectors and both O2 sensors and plugs thanks for the advice. Any ideas on a bad gas gauge it doesnt work if i bought a new float do you think it would fix it?

[Digger]

Awesome i didnt want to replace anything till i did some digging. Thanks ill replace all the injectors and both O2 sensors and plugs thanks for the advice. Any ideas on a bad gas gauge it doesnt work if i bought a new float do you think it would fix it?

Before you go buy a float and pull a gas tank check the "easy" to get at plug connector at the tank use an ohm meter to check the float resistance and plug in a variable resistor if you have one and swing from 40 to 250 ohms to test the gage. Center two pins should be for the sending unit, if the gage moves full to empty everything going forward is good. When it is the plug connect for some reason it's never the easy to access connector and when it is a connection it's always the plug connect at the pump and that means getting to the top of the tank. Infinite resistance from plug to sending unit means that you might be able to just clean the upper plug connect and gage that works when tested, that is always stuck at one spot, with resistance of readable value from the sending unit, is a judgment call on whether or not you want to free a stuck float and risk doing the job again.

[Shondel79]

Okay thats great i can have my dad help me with that. Cool i appreciate it this eases my mind i have something to go on ill give that a go and see what i can do. Thanks again