rainagain

I've been getting the 'water in fuel' warning popping up on the dash board now and again as well as a constantly illuminated ECU light on the dash. When I read the fault codes all I get is 'water in fuel'. When I got the car it was missing the water sensor for the fuel filter so I fitted a cheap one from ebay. I drained the fuel filter but it made no difference. I changed the fuel filter when I got it so it was probably due a change anyway. My Saab has lost the fuel filter cover so the filter is a bit of a mess, it also looks like it's been seeping a wee bit of fuel. Part of the yellow seal for the wiring plug is knackered and sticking out as well, just as I was starting to undo the filter it naturally started to rain. So I had the joys of lying on wet cardboard in the rain. I removed the sensor and then the old filter. I used some of the diesel in the old filter to coat the seals on the new filter and screwed it back on with the sensor. It felt crap whilst spinning it on, you could feel the rubber seal catching. I started the car and stuck my head back under so I could watch diesel drip out the top of the new filter, excellent. I unscrewed the new filter and found that the bit of ground I was lying on was lower than under the filter so all the diesel that spilled out made it's way to where I lying, leaving me stinking of diesel for the rest of the day. I smeared some Vaseline round the seals this time and refitted it, perfect no more leaks. Annoyingly this didn't clear the water in fuel issue so I'll probably have to buy a new sensor, I think I'll just grab a genuine Saab one from NeoBros on ebay for £20 and be done with it.

I had a really annoying issue with the 110HDi in my 307, I initially thought it was the remap that was causing it. Basically it would drive like an old school turbo, you'd put your foot down and nothing would happen, the revs would slowly rise, then all of a sudden you'd get a big shove and off it would go. I had a chat with the guy who provided me with the remap file and he thought it could be a problem with the vacuum system not having enough vacuum to operate the variable vanes of the turbo until higher revs as the vacuum pump is driven off the engine (maybe a leak or a blockage). The 110 HDi has four vaccum solenoids on it, I ended up removing two of them (EGR and anti bulldozing valve which I also gutted) and I cleaned and simplified the vacuum pipework. Annoyingly this made no difference. The actual fault was the MAF sensor, as soon as I changed this everything was fine. During this issue there were no lights on the dash or fault codes in the ECU.

Is that an electric 106 shown in one of the above pics?

These guys will sort you out, must be good, it’s the one the royal family use. https://louislejeune.com Might be a bit pricey though!

I was just doing some more googling. You can see how much the one I bought, which is this one (same hose but eBay rather than Amazon): Is smaller than this one:

As it was such a tight fit it meant it was rubbing on various parts of the car. Like the radiator I did think that a quick wrap of gaffer tape would help by there was no way it would protect it. I cut a section off the old hose. And wrapped it round it where it hit the radiator And also the power steering pump. This is shit bodge and very annoying, but I didn’t really have an alternative. I’m now thinking the best thing to do is wait till another 9-5 appears down upullit and grab the genuine hose off it. Or I could get the same make of hose I fitted back and 2022 and fit that again knowing it should last a year and a bit. Or can anyone think of another hose supplier I could use?

Today whilst it was blowing a gale I pulled the front bumper off so I can get it to drive up my ramps. The old hose was removed and it obvious where it had failed. This is where the problems started, the new hose seems to have been made too short.

Driving to work on Thursday I suddenly found I had no power and was making large clouds of black smoke out the back whenever I tried to accelerate, that’s and whoosh sound let me to believe I had a major boost leak. I quickly stuck my head under the bonnet whilst at work and found the lower boost hose I’d changed back in 2022 had burst. Last time I had to wait ages to get a replacement but I shocked to find I could get one next day from Amazon. Even better the most common option was apparently to order one once per month.

The dmf in my 307 2.0 HDi used to rattle, but there was no vibration then one day whilst booting it up a hill it ended itself. I fitted a second hand smf conversion kit I got off eBay and it was fine until a numpty crashed their pickup into it. That engine was fitted with a smf in some models so I didn’t mind fitting one. I’ve heard of people pumping a knackered dmf with bathroom silicon as apparently this gives it some springiness without rattling or locking it solid. I’m sure I saw one guy one YouTube do this by removing the inspection plate so they didn’t even have to remove the dmf. Not something I’d recommend but maybe worth a ‘it won’t hurt try’ if it gets so bad you can’t live with it and were planning on replacing it/scrapping the car. One day I started my Saab and noticed I had more vibration at idle and then noticeably increased vibration at around ~1100 rpm. Luckily you don’t tend to drive at those revs normally so you don’t notice it. I don’t think it’s worth the £500-700 I’ll need for a new dmf and clutch so once it gets un-drivable it will be the end sadly.

Just had my ptsd triggered. Did you do the maze https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/labyrint-drielandenpunt I went there ~15 years ago visiting a friend that stayed in Germany and got proper lost in that maze. I couldn’t read any of the signs as they weren’t in English. I just wanted to escape. I even tried the ‘keep turning one way’ method but the bridges screwed that up. I eventually stumbled on the exit despite not finding the centre and was incredibly relieved.

If that's the power steering system it might not hold up to the pressure ask me and Dad's driveway how I know this: https://autoshite.com/topic/48578-saab-9-5-fking-potholes/page/7/

I had a T reg 206 ‘L’ that didn’t have central locking, it had a boot lock. One of the first things I did to it was fit an eBay special central locking kit. It did have a bsi though as I had problems with the indicators and found there was no indicator relay to check, it was all in the body computer.

That interior is properly gorgeous

I was thinking that myself but I don’t know if/when the vectra’s suspension was changed like the 9-5 was in 2002 and also the 9-5 is a bit heavier than a vectra so I don’t know how that would effect the damping effort from the strut. Has anyone else heard of someone trying this? I was trying to give it a google earlier today and found people talking about fitting cheap vectra coil over kits to their 9-5s and others saying the spring/damping rates wouldn’t work. I know I could buy a new strut, bump stop, top mount, spring, etc and build a complete new strut, but this costs far more than the £17+vat for a strut from upullit and sadly there’s other things I need to spend my money on right now.

Bugger I checked upullit this morning. The 2005 Saab they had has been cubed, they now only have the smacked Aero left. I can’t even find any second hand struts on eBay apart for the odd random strut from Lithuania or Germany. I never knew 9-5s were getting so rare. I might try SCB, but last time I called them when I needed a second hand intercooler it was cheaper to buy a new one off eBay. It’s getting to the point where I’m going to have to swap the struts round.

Thanks for the heads up, that would leave only a pre-facelift one to grab the struts off. But as mentioned above I don’t think these fit a facelift 9-5. Anyone else able to offer an opinion on this?

Yeah I did think that but with the miles on them and how cheap they are at upullit I thought I’d just stick some new(er) ones on it.

After hitting god knows how many potholes on the roads round where I live I noticed the Saab was making a knocking noise from the front. I initially thought it was a lower ball joint however when I removed the wheel I found this. The anti-roll bar link mount has sheared off. I’ve removed the whole link to allow me to keep the car on the road. The local upullit sells complete struts for £17+vat, as mine look like the originals so likely have 170,000+ miles on them I’m just going to replace both struts. They only have two Saabs 9-5s in the yard. One a pre-facelift and one an aero. I quite fancy grabbing the ones off the aero but what do you think the chances of them being ok are given the state off the donor vehicle: Would the pre-facelift ones fit? I’m sure I remember reading they made changes to the suspension. When they carried out the facelift.

Don’t blame the hoses, blame the owners is what I say.

If it makes you feel any better the sills in my 307 where made of fibre glass and blue towel. This handily stopped water draining so the inner sills rotted out as well. I was able to patch them back up and it provided faithful service for the next four years. Take your time and cut right back to good metal. Then just think of it as a big jigsaw puzzle where you have to make the pieces as you go along.

I’d like to nominate the Fiat Stilo. I didn’t know these existed until I bought one with HGF, which turned out to be the water pump after I’d change the gasket. I didn’t look at the water pump initially as the previous owner told me it had already been changed. Fiat built them to rival the Golf so the interior was nicely put together and it was nice and quiet on the road. We had the 1.2 petrol with the six speed gearbox, this felt a lot faster than it had any right to be and the sixth gear gave great mpg on the motorway. It had soft long travel suspension that wouldn’t set any lap records and the reviewers complained about body roll but in the real world it was lovely and comfy. I later bought a Punto and I remember being disappointed by the NVH and the feel of the cabin compared to the Stilo.

I twin tanked a clio when new veg oil at Costco was a lot cheaper than diesel. Used to get funny looks at the grange when I was filling the dino diesel tank I fitted in the boot. The smell used to make passengers hungry. Does anyone here make biodiesel that you can use in a modern common rail diesel? I always thought about given that a try and but there’s a few chemicals involved.

Weird cantilever wiper arm arrangements to save money when converting from LHD to RHD. You could almost forgive it on a 206 but not the ultimate driving machine 5 series. I owned a 206 and the wipers annoyed me greatly, they always left a line of water on the driver’s side. I remember they even made watchdog as they were so crap. Also the laziness of just sticking a big bar across the firewall to work the brakes when converting to RHD. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-13566999.amp

100% agreement with this, the storage in my 9-5 is shocking. You get one glove box and that’s your lot. The door pockets are pointlessly tiny. The ones in the rear are even worse. I don’t know why they bothered even adding them as you’d be literally struggling to fit a pack of fags in them. My 307 had a handy cubby hole above your right knee which was perfect for works passes, etc. It also had long deep door pockets and a drawers under each front seat. Why was it felt necessary to not let your passenger have a drinks holder?

Robbing bastards. My house insurance has also jumped from £120 to £200+. Shopping around has made no real difference to either price.