UKSaabs

I had my previous 9-5 (2002 Aero) for two years, and during that time I brought the car from standard up to stage 3. Didn't think to keep a diary when I started it and then regretted it when I read other peoples' threads, especially after realising how much money I'd spend on mine!

Anyway that car went pop and I now find myself driving a much more economical and newer 9-5.

I originally wanted to spend up to £1,500 on a diesel 9-5 but got fed up of looking at the same cars on eBay / Autotrader over and over with nothing particularly taking my fancy.

I rang the guys at Malcolm Miles with some SAAB diesel-related questions, which they answered, but also told me that they had this car available. I originally wrote the idea off as being too expensive but then changed my mind and here we are!

I'd sort of decided I'd have it before actually going to view it, but went over last week to look in more detail. Didn't actually drive it before agreeing a deal. I was pleased to find it had full leather (heated fronts) and xenon lights, two things which I'd resigned myself to probably not getting on my next car.

As part of the sale, Andy and Jason did the following work to it:
-New dual-mass flywheel (old one was making a right racket)
-New rear brakes
-Cambelt and water pump
-Service
-MoT
-Investigate park assist failure
-Investigate one electric-fold mirror being slow to move
-Realign front bumper (they've improved it but it's not perfect. I will investigate at some point)

Collected it today. I have now driven 40 miles in it and I'm still getting used it to. It's strangely familiar in a lot of ways, but alien in others.




Got a "check coolant level" on the SID on the way home. I have since done so and it was low, perhaps something to do with this being the first decent run on the new water pump. At first I thought maybe the sensor in the tank was sticky.

I noticed on the drive home that the steering wheel didn't sit level and that the steering didn't seem to want to self-centre when coming out of a corner. Have since had the tracking done (albeit front only) and the car is much better to drive.



I've fitted two screw covers to the two front door handles. I sell these on eBay and they tend to get snapped up, but luckily I had two left:



I've also fitted a centre head restraint, a quick 5-minute job. Got two spares if anyone is interested.

Before:


Plastic cover where centre head restraint is mounted:


After (prefer down if not in use as it can obstruct vision otherwise):


Other points to note at this stage:

Ash tray doesn't stay in. I've got spares somewhere to rectify this.

Indicator stalk is wobbly as anything - I've got spares assuming pre Dame Edna will fit. I suspect it'll be a straight swap.

Driver's mirror (auto-dimming) is discoloured. I understand this to be a common fault:


I need to give the guys at MM a working parking sensor for them to fit and get rid of this message:


And finally a gratuitous shot of my current stock of spare parts. Makes it a lot easier having a few bits and bobs laying around!




More updates to follow, no doubt!

Looks ace mate, nice colour.
Whats the torque like on this diesel?

Got the latest purchase from you in the post. Many thanks!

Cheers Ali, thanks for the update. The car is actually snow silver (I think colour code 309) so all the 268 panels I have spare will be the wrong colour.

Torque-wise, seems to be pretty good, I'm not disappointed considering it's only a 1.9 4-pot diesel!

Today I decided to take the main window switch apart and clean it. This is preventative maintenance really as they are known to get clogged up with grease and hair and then stop working without warning. I only know this because it happened on my last 9-5 and the window was down at the time.

Not actually too bad, I've seen a lot worse:


Broken down into component parts:


I noticed soon after getting into the car yesterday that the indicator stalk had a lot of play in it. I decided that I would fit one of the spares that I had laying around (quick 5 minute job) but then I noticed that the newer one was a different colour and the replacement would look out of place (to me, anyway!):


I decided that I might be able to take the cover off the replacement one and change it with the current one, thus getting best of both worlds: less play and nice appearance. Just to be on the safe side I decided to take the replacement one apart first to see how easy it would be to change the outer cover.

I'm glad that I took the replacement one apart first as it proved to be quite awkward and more moving parts than I'd anticipated. Decided in the end that it can wait until I find an especially good one and then just do a straight swap.

The state of play when I gave up on the replacement one:

Whats the torque like on this diesel?

236 lb/ft as far as i recall. not too shabby at all i think.

Bob

Have replaced the ashtray as it wasn't staying in (eBay jobbie). This shows the part that was missing and stopping the tray from staying in:


All fixed

Good work James , what's next on the list ?

Painting four of those parking sensors (thanks again btw!) and getting those fitted. At the same time, I'd like TechII to be used to make the doors lock when I drive off.

Also currently investigating floppy indicator stalk issue...

The little spring bit from the ashtray is likely to be on the floor under the centre console somewhere!

_________________
.
.
.
.
Everything will be OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end...

Excellent thread and good choice! Haha. Look forward to seeing more of your car

_________________
-Kane

Bit of an update - last week the starter motor started to play up but only when the car was hot. It was not disengaging and sounded like a bag of nails. Sometimes it would take up to 10 attempts to reach a combination of the car starting and the starter motor disengaging.

Anyway, big thank you to the guys at Malcolm Miles who have sorted it a) at short notice b) very quickly and c) lending me a car for the day.

The car sounds so much quieter when cranking over now (only realised it was loud before because it is so quiet now) and of course, disengages properly.

They also used TechII to make the doors lock when driving off.

On a different note, today I have been proactive by stopping a coolant pipe from rubbing any further.

Before (offside of slam panel):


After:

Bit of an update to the thread. The fact that I had to scroll down to page 3 in order to find my thread is a good thing - I wanted the car to be reliable and not to cost me too much money, other than day to day running costs.

So far so good...

Update - kept on getting the warning message to change the battery on the key fob. Quick job especially when you see a photo showing what the clip looks like that holds the key together, before you start prodding. Did that last week.

My driver's (dimming) mirror had become de-laminated, giving it a bronze tinge. I'd kept hold of a pair of folding, dimming mirrors from a car I recently broke, but only today, thanks to Alun (Pug) have I had the balls to change it. Reason is because I know that the glass is horrendously expensive (I believe well over £100 each!). Alun showed me the trick of removing and fitting the glass (without breaking it!).

This shows the new glass fitted and the old bronzed one...



Still need to replace the dodgy parking sensor though...

Finally got round to getting the parking sensor issue sorted. I'd been told by the lads at Malcolm Miles that it was the middle-right sensor. Unfortunately I couldn't find any sensors from a Dame Edna so had to take two off facelift cars I have broken for parts. They facelift ones are different in appearance to the DE ones, but still fit and work okay.

Facelift sensors have a flat edge whereas DE ones are circular as shown here:



Decided therefore to replace sensors 2 AND 3, so that although two sensors were slightly different, it isn't so noticeable as having just the one odd one out. Note that facelift sensors are unpainted, so I had to paint a couple. Colour is just "silver" - looks quite different in this photo but it's not noticeable once on the car.

It was easy enough getting the bumper off but world of pain getting it back on. Could have done with another pair of hands but I'd started the job alone, so would have to finish it alone! My advice is to get the bumper completely off (disconnecting wire to parking sensor loom), put all the foam inserts in the right places and then reinstall. I originally tried putting the foam blocks in the right places whilst balancing the bumper on one knee - it was never going to work!



Anyway, I don't have a photo showing the job completed, but it is, so I'm happy. I'm also pleased because when the sensors go to a solid tone, I am about 8 inches away from hitting whatever is behind me. I've been in cars where they tell you you're close when you're about 18 inches away.

I'm now getting this message, instead of the "park assist failure" message I'd got so used to seeing!

Thought I would update this thread as it's been a while. I noticed that the car was always very rough for about 5 seconds on a cold start, and then idled fine. Also when driving, sometimes it would feel very flat a lacking in power whereas at other times the car would feel like it had the full 150hp it should.

A bit of investigation on the common issues of the engine made me check the swirl flap situation. As expected, the control arm had come off the flaps, meaning that flap 3 was doing what it should (this one is attached to the motor) whereas 1, 2 and 4 were doing whatever the hell they wanted. This would explain the difference in performance day to day I guess.

Two options - either get a new manifold with new flaps and potentially be in the same situation in a couple of years or remove the flaps altogether. Anyway, the lads at Malcolm Miles fitted a swirl flap removal kit for me, basically they remove the swirl flaps and fill the gaps with 4 bungs. Sounds simple but it's a manifold-off job so it's a whole day. This shows (not very well) one of the bungs. (Photo actually taken from another car they had in, but it's the same thing). Apparently you leave the motor electronically attached so that the car still thinks it's in control of the flaps and doesn't throw a hissy fit!



Whilst the car was in, they also did an oil and filter change, adjusted the handbrake and turned down the annoying beep when double-locking the car.


For the last few months I'd been having a recurring problem where the EML came on. The fault code was always DPF-related. The lads at Malcolm Miles did numerous re-gens on the car as well as removing the DPF and physically cleaning it out but the fault kept on coming back.

Anyway, I'd decided that it was a good excuse for me to take the car over to Angel Tuning near Banbury for their "DPF delete" service. I didn't want to do this until the swirl flaps were out, so I waited until that was done. For £495 they gutted the DPF, disabled the EGR valve and given the car a remap. According to their website it's an extra 45hp and 65lbft. They had the car for a day and the work has made such a difference. It's no Aero but it now pulls strongly throughout all gears. Economy (according to the computer) is 5 - 10mpg better, but I need to do a brim-to-brim measurement to verify this.

It's been a couple of months now since I had the swirl flaps and DPF work done. I'm pleased to say that the car is still performing strongly (for a 4-pot diesel!) and my economy (according to the SID) is looking good. I appreciate that I need to do a brim-to-brim measurement to check the data but SID is telling me I'm getting ~50mpg round town and closer to ~60mpg on a long run.

When the car was in at Malcolm Miles for the swirl flap removal, Jason warned me that one of the rear shockers was starting to weep and although it wasn't too bad, it would need doing in the not too distant. I had noticed in the previous week that the back of the car made a bit of a "dock" noise when going over speed bumps and also in sweeping corners, undulations in the road made the rear end feel a bit unsettled. I knew I needed to get it sorted ASAP, any my perfect excuse to kill two birds with one stone came one cold Saturday morning. Went to put the window down to see better when joining a road and my window fell down into the door. I knew immediately it was one of the infamous green rollers. Although it would stay up, I put some tape on it just to make sure...



And part of the offending item:


Ash at Malcolm Miles changed both rollers although only one had broken - may as well do the other one whilst the door card was off. The offending damper, now a lot worse than when it was first spotted:


Big thanks to Matte who let me have the suspension off a car I'd previously sold him. Saved me having to remove from one of my breakers and they were tried and tested. Also cleared some space in his shed Both shocks were changed (complete) so as to keep a matching pair.

Meanwhile, the misaligned front bumper was starting to annoy me a bit more, so I sourced some parts to try and put it right. The car has obviously had a minor bump at some point (prior to my ownership, honest!). This is what it was like:


Bumper off to investigate:


A crack in the rear of the bracket and a missing clip towards the front.



Off came the bracket, had to drill two rivets. Made a bit of a hash of it but anyway, it's done now:


And attached a replacement bracket using a couple of bolts and nylocs:


The little corner trim piece was also missing a clip meaning that it wouldn't stay flush with the panel, so I sourced one from csaab on here. Big thanks to him - I sent the money in the afternoon and had the item in my hand before lunch the next day! Top service.

It's all back together and looking a lot better, albeit not perfect. No pics I'm afraid just yet!

Also I've now moved into my new house, so am enjoying having my own driveway (no more parking in the road and being worried of damage from passing cars) and am also cycling to work 2/3 times a week, giving the car a generally easier life!

I should have updated this a while back - during October the clutch had started to slip during certain "spirited driving" moments. Wasn't too bad and didn't do it all the time but I knew it wasn't going to get any better, so the lads at Malcolm Miles replaced that (and the slave cylinder) using OE parts (in November).

Top job as always - 100% recommended.

Next job on the list - brighter headlights! I was followed by Matte in his 04 Aero, and he'd upgraded the xenon lights in his. Copied what he bought and got a pair of D1S 6000K xenon bulbs off Amazon for around £25. Also bought some LED sidelight bulbs.

Realised before doing the job that it was going to be easier to do it with the front bumper off. Only needed to drop it onto the floor (four wheel-arch bolts and four plastic fitting along the top, 5 mins max) to get access to the headlights. Headlights are held in with 3 bolts so again, nice and easy.

First came the sidelight bulbs. On the facelift cars (2002-2005) you have to pull on the wire to get the sidelight out. Not too bad to remove but tricky to get back in because wire is of course floppy. SAAB (GM maybe?) have solved this with a neat solution - put the bulb on a plastic stick:


New LED compared to old filament bulb:


New LED colour a lot more modern than old bulb:


Changing the xenon bulb is very straightforward. SAAB (again, GM?) have got a neat design where you simply rotate a plastic ring which opens the claws that hold onto the ballast section. The plastic ring remains in situ so nothing fiddly about it at all:


Driver's side done. Picture for comparison of colours:


Job done on both sides:

Sometimes it's the little jobs that make a big difference to a cars appearance. Looks much better, nice work.

_________________
Instagram @uksaabs.matte

Got to ask, why wasn't this done when the DMF was replaced at point of sale? Seems to me that for a bit over £100 worth of parts (at trade price) you have been saddled with a very large bill within your first year of ownership.............

_________________
9-3 2.2TiD Van Aaken, now gone :0(

Could you link me to the bulbs you bought mate?