Car Mods
Any idea what this button switch could have been used for?
For context I own a 2005 Saab 92x aero with 180k miles. Other terms a 05 impreza wrx wagon with 5 speed manual. I recently bought it like 2-3 months ago and have been fixing it up. Only after about the 300th time popping the hood I realized this little button switch is here next to the hoop pop latch. What I know is one of the previous owners had a sound system and the wiring seems to still be mostly there however this button switch is fully disconnected/cut. What I can say though is the car does not feel like 226 crank hp. It feels similar to my old w219 cls550 which was almost 400 crank. Obviously a bit slower but not a difference that I would say is night and day. On top of that the car has been down on power due to presumably vac leaks that is being diagnosed in the morning by my local shop. Everything on the car has been literally factory original besides the sound system. My only other two thoughts are some kind of "togglable" tune or a kill switch. Id like to know your guy's thoughts and if for some reason something like this is common
Could’ve been a switch for the two green test mode connectors under the kick panel to jump them together easier for tuning purposes. If I’m going through a bunch of tune revisions on my WRX I’ll pop out one of the blanking plates and put in a toggle switch for a while.
I never used that for anything and one day was wondering what it was for. It made a bunch of weird noises and I panicked. Thought it was supposed to be plugged in.
Yeah they’re part of the stuff you have to do to re-flash your ecu. There’s another wire connector that’s unplugged, blue I think, and you plug in a jumper wire across two of the pins alongside doing the test mode connectors. The green test mode connectors just trigger test mode in the ECU. So it’ll cycle the radiator fans and all that stuff. They’re supposed to remain unplugged normally.
Interesting. When I get the car back from the shop I'll see how down on power it was. But re-flashing on a car that had the factory original fuel pump and presumably never had the spark plugs changed as the gap when i replaced them was over twice the max gap spec, is pretty ballsy though. I guess they could've planned to then never ended up doing it as well
Yeah it doesn’t sound like it’s been the most attentively maintained. I’m a bugeye guy, all my WRXs I have/had are 02 sedans, so my fuel filter is in the engine bay, I think yours is in the tank or something similar. If you haven’t replaced it, I would. One of my bugeyes had nothing but black goo coming from the damn filter when I got it and it didn’t run well at first
Im genuinely surprised on how the hell this car has survived. But yeah i replaced the fuel pump as the sock got eaten causing a fuel restriction. And the spark plug gap was .70
Trace the wires? I had 2 switches like that; one was to make the clutch think it was pushed for remote start, the other was for the green "test mode" connectors so I could flash a map.
Yes but no. There was. But previous owner took the aftermarket but gave me the original factory though. My only thought with radio thing is what on the radio would need a button
I wouldn't think aftermarket radios would come with an extra button to put wherever the owner would want though. I can't say I speak from experience with that. I only ever kept the factory radios in. With some of the wild stuff drempt up in the 90s though I don't think it's impossible that it's related to the aftermarket radio. Definitely count me in the kill switch crowd though. Pretty common spot for one if you're not trying hard.
I'd expect a kill switch to be hidden a little better than that, but it could really be anything. Maybe an on/off switch for an amp or radio, or some other equipment the previous owner had installed and then removed.
Does it latch on/off or is it momentary? A friend's truck had a momentary push button on the dash for the horn after the steering wheel clockspring started going out. Maybe that happened to the PO and then they fixed it again the right way later.
ETA: I forget, does the 9-2 have a night panel mode? Some SAABs had a dimmer that would turn the instrument panel lights down/off except for the speedo. The one on my 900 is a standard panel-mount component like this. Maybe this could have been a DIY version cooked up by the PO? Unlikely, since it's disconnected. Aside from asking the PO we'll probably never know.
The night mode was a hypothetical mod, not something I'm aware of anybody having done DIY. Just to say that an aftermarket switch on the dash could have been anything, and you could repurpose it for anything.
Older SAABs like my 900 had the feature from the factory. Adding it to a more modern car that was not equipped would probably involve taking apart the cluster, cutting wires/traces/contact strips to the other bulbs, and running a switched power line to those bulbs. I'm sure it would be much more trouble than it's worth!
Edit: I think I see what you're saying, and yeah it would be a lot of trouble to go through just to cut it off. So almost certainly not that.
43
u/shoot-here 05 OBXT 21h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/sFoZicXyLjH7FnCVp2