Econmancer

Replacing the brake pads on the SAAB 9-5 is easy. I’d suggest 2.5 hours for this job if you aren’t in a rush. Most of the time seemed to be spent jacking up the car and removing the wheels.

The first step is to raise a wheel like you are changing a tire. Be safe and set the parking brake, block the wheels you aren’t raising, use jack stands, all that good stuff. You’ll then need to remove the wheel. On the front brake pads, it helps if you turn the wheel so you can get better access to the back of the caliper before you raise the car. Open the brake fluid reservoir and put a rag around the fill hole to pick up any fluid that may spill as you work on the calipers.

Once the wheel is off, you should see something like this-

The metal spring clip on the front can be removed with a screwdriver. There are two bolts holding the caliper. You can access these bolts by removing the plastic dust caps with the screwdriver.

The bolts are E-20 torx size. It might take some pressure, but they should loosen without too much fuss.

You can see in the above image where the top bolt is unscrewed and ready to be removed. Once both bolts are removed you can work the caliper loose. You’ll want to push the piston inside the caliper a bit to give you room to wiggle the caliper free. You can do this with the screwdriver. Once freed, the caliper can be rested on a box or step stool to keep pressure off the brake line. The old pads are wiggled off and the new ones are installed. Push the piston inside the caliper all the way down to make room for the new pads. I used an oil filter wrench to do this and it worked perfectly, but they make a tool designed just for pushing the caliper piston (if you want to get fancy). Installation is done in reverse and the metal spring clip is installed as seen in the top image.

The rear brake pads are replaced in the same way. I found the clearance tight because of the rear suspension, but an extension on your socket wrench should give you room to remove the two bolts from the caliper. My rear pads still have plenty of material when my front pads were nearly bare, but I still replaced all four at the same time.

The tension spring is installed as seen above. Check the brake fluid level and replace the lid to the reservoir before you drive away. The new pads will need to be bed-in. There are several techniques to doing this and they are found on the internet. It’ll be several hundred miles before brake performance is maximized. Be careful a give yourself plenty of braking distance while the pads are getting settled.

From Amazon:
Brake Pads

-P. Econmancer

BAIC wants to create cars based on the SAAB 9-5 and 9-3. It makes me wonder what will happen to the price of parts for these two SAAB models.

My thoughts are that prices for certain 9-5 and 9-3 parts will go lower. The availability of more parts that are compatible with the vehicles will give SAAB owners more choice and this will put pressure on the current part companies to lower their prices. Regardless of if you’d put these new parts on your SAAB, the current part makers will still need to adjust prices to compete, so cheaper Scan-Tech and Elring parts could soon follow.

But what parts will be available and at a lower price? There have been a lot of changes to these cars over the years and BAIC, I can only assume, will be using the more recent designs. The number of parts my 2000 9-5 has in common with a current 9-5 is limited. For example, I wouldn’t expect the price of the neutral safety switch for my car to go lower because it was updated by SAAB years ago and the new part isn’t compatible with my SAAB.

One part I can picture being lowered in price is the Direct Ignition Cassette. These go out fairly regularly, can’t currently be repaired, and are pricey enough that people would look for an alternative. It’s the part I’d produce if I was in the aftermarket business.

The Throttle Body would be another great candidate for a lower priced alternative. They’re expensive to replace and the wiring inside them has a tendency to rot.

How about low priced Saab Information Displays? It seems every 9-5 and 9-3 owner fights missing pixels on the SID. Repairs exist, I’ve even fixed mine own SID, but a cheaper replacement would be nice. Mass airflow sensors, Alarm units, and Crankshaft Position Sensors are some others that I can picture going down in price.

What about the turbo? Will these new designs be turbocharged and which turbo will they use. Personally, I’d use the TD-04 turbo on all of them. I don’t see the TD-04 going down in price because it’s already a commonly used turbo. What if they do use the GT-17 turbo from the light pressure SAAB models? They’re surely not buying the design from Garrett, so they would have to rely on them as a supplier, but the additional vehicles could lower the price of a GT-17 turbo because they would help make this fairly rare model of turbo more in demand.

It will be interesting to see what BAIC does with the 9-5 and 9-3 designs and what happens to the aftermarket parts prices once the new vehicles are up and running.

-P. Econmancer

I fouled the stock converter on my SAAB while trying to recover from a failed turbo. The car ran poorly, with a rough idle, stalling, surging, and there was a lack of power and decrease in fuel mileage. A stock replacement catalytic converter from SAAB was around $1500. A 3 inch downpipe and race cat from GenuineSAAB.com was less than $600. It arrived at my door less than 48 hours after I ordered it.

Removing the old converter was straightforward. I drove the car onto ramps, blocked the rear wheels, set the brake and disconnected the battery. I also disconnected the wiring harnesses for the two O2 sensors. These are located near the firewall, next to the throttle body and brake reservoir.

There is no need to remove the oxygen sensors until the entire downpipe is loose. Remove the heat shield and pipe connecting the diverter valve to the turbo’s cobra.

There are three nuts / threaded studs that connect the turbo to the downpipe. Remove these, but keep the old downpipe supported on the threaded studs that remain. I had two nuts come loose and one threaded stud come loose. It really doesn’t matter.

Under the car there is a metal bracket with a bolt or two that will need to be loosened and there are three nuts that need to be removed where the downpipe meets the resonator in the middle of the car. Once these are loose you can start wiggling the old downpipe and converter  until it is free and can be slid out from under the car.

Once the old pipes are loose you can remove the oxygen sensors. I used liquid wrench and an open adjustable wrench with a rubber mallet to get mine off. This would be a good time to replace the two O2 sensors, if necessary.

The sensors are then installed on the new downpipe and installation under the car is done in reverse. The metal bracket by the oil sump is no longer used with the race cat. The O2 sensors might need to be rerouted differently to reach the wiring harness, but that’s no big deal. Use the threaded studs at the turbo and resonator as extra hands to adjust the pipe into place. Take your time and tighten the bolts completely once in place to close any exhaust leaks.

Here is the inside of the racing cat.

This project gives you an opportunity to check on the health of your turbo. Here is the inside of my turbo, one year after it was installed.

The project was simple and the results were immediate. The car needed a working converter. The upgrade to a 3 inch downpipe brings me closer to the ability to go from my current stage-1 to a stage-3, once I get the correct software from BSR, Aero cobra, and a larger cat back exhaust.

-P. Econmancer

I take a lot of photos while I am working on my SAAB 9-5 and I’m happy to share them with anyone who needs an image for a message board post or whatnot. I frequently run into posts by other people using my images to help someone with a car problem and I think it’s great.

I just want to make this formal invitation to everyone in case some of you felt awkward about borrowing the photos without explicit permission.

This is a link to my Flickr account.

I am in the process of changing the user rites and organizing the images, but I will put this post under the stickies on the front page so it can be found easy; feel free to bookmark the Flickr link for quick access.

Linking images back to this blog or my Flickr page are appricated, but not in any way necessary.

I don’t have any advice about repairing the SID, or “SAAB Information Display”, on a SAAB 9-5 except to say that I only made mine worse by trying to make it better. There are several methods for DIY repair of missing pixels on the information display. I tried the foam spacer and warm iron methods and only ended up with more missing pixels.

There is a reputable company called BBA that will repair the SID and garentees its work.

SAAB Central has a thread about SID repairers that is worth reading before choosing a company.

My SID will be off to BBA soon for repair and I will post about the results at that time. For now, here are images from the inside of the SID for your entertainment: