Sure enough, on this sub-20° morning the battery refused to spin the starter. Dutifully I donned my coat and gloves and came out to help. I pulled out the jumper-gizmo and shut the trunk, hooked up the cables and...wait for it...success!After disconnecting the cables, I walked to the back of the car and rapped on the lid, signaling my wife to pop it open -- after all, she might need the power pack again and I wanted her to have it along. Thing is, this marvel of Swedish automotive engineering wouldn't allow the trunk to open while the key was still in the ignition.
So my wife switched off the engine, removed the key and opened the boot. I stowed the jump-starter and closed the lid. She re-inserted the key and turned it.
Nothing productive happened, of course -- the car still had a dead battery. We repeated the process (leaving the trunk lid open this time) and soon Mrs. KintlaLake was on her way to work.
My wife loves her Saab and so do I. The older spawn has a '99 9-3, essentially a re-numbered version of the '96 900SE that I once owned, and it serves his teenage purposes well. (Now that I think about it, perhaps too well.) We're disappointed that these days the company is, at best, an orphan.
But if you see one of those old ads claiming that Saabs are "Born from jets," don't you believe it.
"Born from lawyers" is more like it.
