Forum Saab IV now V: New car and assessment

[Split_Pin]

Work continues:

Oil and filter change.

The sump plug is very awkward to access but on my last 2 9-3s  I had devised a method using a jack to move the spanner the first turn as I couldn't get a swing on it. The bracing structure gets in the way too.

But early 2004 cars (my previous ones were a 54 and 06 plate) must have a different design as it's impossible to get anything on the plug other than a 15 mm swan necked ring spanner. I had to resort to just my own strength (which is meagre) to crack it off but I managed in the end. I remembered all the other tricks to getting the oil filter out the restricted space and so on.

All done no bother.

I discovered that someone (Ken, I presume) fitted a spacer plate to the ECU to protect it from the heat of the engine. Karl at Noobtune makes these.

Y braces under the floor which always rot out are good on this one.

I collect my new bumper on Thursday. Not going to lie, I will be rattle canning it but there's enough black trim on it to break up the blue so I reckon it will be OK.

[brownnova]

So good to see this getting the love it deserves!

The owner before me had had it for many years, but wasn’t a car person at all so had just done the basics for years, hence the state it was in when I picked it up. What’s nice is that along the way each of us has done a few jobs to improve it! Over time it’ll be a nice car! 

Is the boot lid still bent up in one corner? 

[Cookiesouwest]

On 01/05/2025 at 19:59, Split_Pin said:

All 4 of my Saabs have done the rounds of the forum and as far as I know are still extant here.

Laser Red 9-3 Cab Auto: Northernmonkey, SRi05 twice, Wack, me and currently MAF260.

Espresso Black 9-3 Manual: Jazoli, me, Prince Rupert, Cookiesouwest and now the ex-wife of another member whose name escapes me

Steel Grey 9-5: wgl2019, Crackers, Bornite, me and now Aldo135

Current Nocturne Blue 9-3 cab: Brownnova, DirtyDaily, Ken, 83C and me.

To show I'm putting it about a bit now:

I bought the 9-3 from 83C who also used to own the forum A8. The latter was the 'Bumpergate' car and the perpetrator of that owned my Espresso 9-3 for a short time (I refrained from cracking any funnies on that yesterday 🤭)

DirtyDaily who used to own the blue 9-3 now owns an Audi A8 I also owned.

I've sold Aldo135 3 cars now, 2 of which I bought on here!

Anyway, the blue 9-3 cleaned up well inside and out. I found a bottle of leather cleaner under the seat so used that and improved the seats a lot. 

I kept the tailored mats I bought brand new for the Espresso 9-3 and fitted them to the blue one today:

Oil and filter ordered.

I'll fit the splitter tomorrow in lieu of a new bumper.

The clonk from the back is exactly the same noise that my red 93 made, and likely still does. It never got picked up at the MOT.

The front ARB bushes are also creaky, same as my Espresso 9-3. Never fixed that either 😂

 

@mercedade had the espresso from me, for his ex.

[mercedade]

Yep, still going well. Just ordered a service kit for it actually 

[Split_Pin]

17 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Is the boot lid still bent up in one corner? 

Ken replaced it with another in the same colour so it's spot on now!

[Split_Pin]

Got woken at 7.45 this morning by the alarm going off. I think its either the drivers door or bonnet. I changed it to door sensor only mode in the SiD to rule the latter out.

I will try and speak very nicely to the chap I am collecting the bumper from to see if he can just disable it altogether. 

I also reset the service indicator so no more warning message.

[SRi05]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

Got woken at 7.45 this morning by the alarm going off. I think its either the drivers door or bonnet. I changed it to door sensor only mode in the SiD to rule the latter out.

I will try and speak very nicely to the chap I am collecting the bumper from to see if he can just disable it altogether. 

I also reset the service indicator so no more warning message.

These old 9-3's can have alarm issues. Best just deleting it altogether with Tech2 to save the hassle like I done with mine. Nobody is going to steal it anyway 😂

[Split_Pin]

Aye I was going to look out that picture of the guys details you used if the local guy isn't able to do it 

[purplebargeken]

It’s a nice car to drive.  The heat shield was indeed fitted by Karl. Couldn’t find a bumper in the right colour sadly. Oil and filter was done in November IIRC. New correct plugs were done just prior to the Noobtune in the New Year. 
 

I found the NT made a huge difference to how it drove but that’s just me perhaps.

[Split_Pin]

Aye it does drive well, no issues at all. Same as my other manual example, pulls well around town and in the mid range but obviously not as blisteringly fast at the 9-5. 

Fed the seats with Gliptone liquid leather as they were a bit dry.

I need to get a new air filter as judging by the rusty screws on the air box, it was done quite some time ago.

 

[purplebargeken]

Yes, they are rusty. That was going to be the next thing on my list.

[Split_Pin]

New bumper collected tonight.

Convertibles are great for collecting bulky items. Just drop it in and go!

[Split_Pin]

I changed the air filter tonight. The screws were rotten and one rounded off, bloody Torx crap. 

Old one wasn't too bad:

4 is enough to hold the airbox for now, I'll put a few in my toolbox buy a few next time I'm at U-pullit. 

I've sanded down the new bumper. Unfortunately there are a couple of small splits but they are hidden so holes drilled and cable ties applied. The paint has arrived too, I'll lay that down when I next have time.

[Split_Pin]

Complete failure of the drivers door electrics all of a sudden. Lock and drivers window not working although all the others are. The soft top goes down but frequently stops saying manual operation only. 

Will need to get to the bottom of this as I don't want a Saab Coupe 😂

 

[Split_Pin]

Haven't been arsed with this since the electrics started playing up.

I had sanded down the bumper and had hit it with a few coats but fucked it in the corner of the garden 2 weeks ago and haven't touched it since.

I dug the car out the garage last weekend and since the weather cooled, everything has gone back to normal. Apart from the car thinking I'm trying to open the roof while driving and at the same time telling me there's obstacles in the boot so I can't. There's a lot to unpack there.

Anyway, it's been largely fine and drives well  but I wanted to identify what had been going wrong.

So, I dug out the details of a Saab guy that @SRi05 had given me years ago and gave him a message.

I drove over to a less than fantastic area of Glasgow tonight and he plugged his Tech 2 in. 

No surprises except nothing stored for the door shiz. At least the door module is not fucked which is good because you have to divorce and then re code a replacement. He recommended cleaning the contacts in the loom plug and on the modules themselves, so I will do that. Oh, and replace the brake light bulb.

Can't believe I'm talking about modules and codes on Autoshite. Who'd have thought.

I'll need to get the bumper finished off as well as the paint that's on it went down quite well considering. 

[SiC]

Wires broken in the door cables? That used to be a problem back in the day - no idea if still the case. Plus the modules play silly buggers and stop locking but I'd thought you'd got errors for that. 

[Split_Pin]

20 minutes ago, SiC said:

Wires broken in the door cables? That used to be a problem back in the day - no idea if still the case. Plus the modules play silly buggers and stop locking but I'd thought you'd got errors for that. 

Yeah I got a message saying there was a door lock error.

I think, potentially, other than checking the plugs/loom, my fix will be to not ever press again the interior lock/unlock button 😂

[Split_Pin]

Next job, some rusty bits.

Thankfully these are the only ones.

Hmm

Shit

Thankfully it's a seam so there are 2 skins. The outer one is a bit thin but the inner is fine.

Better

A coat of Vactan

A coat of special* paint and then some approximately blue paint from the garage.

I found a touch up pen rolling around in the spare wheel well which was great, so I could touch in the visible surface in the right colour.

The paint is quite nice in the sun.

Same for the wheel arch. Its only rusty because its taken a kiss as some point and burst the paint.

Sanded

Vactan 

..and then special paint, before colour

Front bumper next!

[Split_Pin]

2 minutes ago, 83C said:

Is that normal for 9-3 'verts? I thought they were mostly galvanised.

Yeah they all go there, the rubber traps moisture. I normally leave them alone but I wanted to remove the visible bleb. Sadly they're not galvanised and they do rust but nowhere near as bad as earlier 9-3s or the 9-5. The bonnet is aluminium 😬

[brownnova]

On 17/05/2025 at 13:52, Split_Pin said:

Complete failure of the drivers door electrics all of a sudden.

Didn’t see this when you originally posted! It used to do that to me randomly on occasion. I found wiggling the wiring bundle coming from the door generally fixed it for a while.

It was very random, but I did find it was more likely to do it if I opened the door fully to the limit of the hinge. 

[Split_Pin]

Aye it's been OK for a bit now, definitely the loom then, fix process noted!

[Split_Pin]

1 hour ago, 83C said:

Surprised given where it was made that they didn't galvanise them. I saw the bleb just below the panel line and thought oh, that'll be alright for a while, had no idea that was just the tip of the iceberg!

These are actually made by Steyr-Puch in Austria who build anything from trucks to kids bikes. They have their weak spots, rusty rear arches normally indicate the cars too far gone, so this ones good! They also go in the outriggers under the floor and in bad cases the sills can corrode. But overall they're not too bad compared to older Saab designs.

The facelift models are built from notoriously shitty metal and rust much worse, I probably wouldn't bother with one of those.

[Split_Pin]

I finished painting the new bumper today.

Looks alright for a rattle can job!

[Wibble]

3 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I finished painting the new bumper today.

Looks alright for a rattle can job!

It really does, I’m impressed, fair play, it’s way better than I’d have achieved.

[AnnoyingPentium]

Looks really good, damn sight better than I can manage anyway.

[Split_Pin]

Cheers, it's nowhere near as good as a pro job but I didn't want to bother Gingernutzz with it as he's already having the 75 over in a few weeks' time for a fair bit of work.

I'll start building the bumper back up tomorrow before swapping them over. I'll be glad not to see the sellotaped original any more!

[rainagain]

How's the Vactan holding out? I used some on my 9-5 and the rust kept coming back. 

[Split_Pin]

3 hours ago, rainagain said:

How's the Vactan holding out? I used some on my 9-5 and the rust kept coming back. 

It's only been a few weeks to also use electric pylon paint on top of that. I've found it quite effective.

 

[Split_Pin]

Replacement bumper on, it was expectedly  a faff. Paints OK at 10 feet or more but it's better than cracks and sellotape.

Roof isnt working at all now, neithers the driver window. Helpful* when its 26 degrees. Nowt came up on Tech 2 about it. Getting a bit tired of that tbh!

Fogs and ambient temp sensor all work though ✅️

[MAF260]

Very smart - looks loads better.