saablog

I’ve barely driven the 900 lately. One trip to Sultan last Tuesday, and two to the Home Depot on Wednesday where each time it toted home more than 800 lbs of sand or concrete pavers.  That wasn’t the best.

I haven’t been doing any work on the 900 either.  That’s because our other Saab has been taking up a lot of my time. Our 2001 Saab 9-5 Sedan, which we purchased new in November of 2001, has been having some issues I’ve been dealing with.

 Several weeks ago, we got a Front Lamp Failure message on the SID (Saab Info Display). I bought a new $15 H7 headlamp, and that didn’t fix it. I figured the new bulb was faulty, and spent another $15 on another H7, and still the problem persisted. So I looked on the Saab Network bulletin boards for 9-5 Headlight problems, and found out that a small orange ECU in the underhood relay panel, meant to monitor headlamp functionality, will commonly fail and cause the headlamps to not work. It’s a $160 part. So I phoned Scanwest, who had one in stock. Our extended warranty covered the part plus 30 mins of “book time” to replace it, so now that is fixed.

 While we were sorting out that problem, Ani got a rock ding in the windshield on her way to Northgate, on I-5. Every rock ding she has gotten in that car has been on I-5 southbound between home and Northgate (that may be a small exaggeration, but 3 dings have happened to the 9-5 there). We had another one just in May. This one is big enough that it may require replacement of the windshield, but I’ve called to try to get it filled. Filling dings is free through our insurance company (Allstate), but is a hassle. I finally callled them yesterday, remembering the hassle I went through in May of a long time on the phone, the repaiman standing me up TWICE, and finally a second, thouroughly spooky repairman in his late-’80s Oldsmobile that leaked oil all over our driveway. I’ve got Harman Glass/Glass Doctor schedule to be her “sometime” on Monday. I ws on the phone with Allstate and then their glass service scheduler (and also the glass shop) for 25 minutes yesterday to schedule it; being transferred 3 times  between departments to do so. Now I get to wait around all day for them on Monday. I love it.

In the midst of these little issues, the 9-5 has also developed a rotational noise that is vehicle-speed dependent. It seems to be coming from the front, and I’ve eliminated the possibility of a tire problem by rotating the tires myself, and then having them re-balanced yesterday at Les Schwab where they were purchased. The noise persists. I looked on Swedespeed, where the troubleshooting for such a noise recommends checking (1) tires, including pressure; (2) wheels, for straightness and balance; and (3) wheel bearing failure, which is not uncommon on 9-5s around 60k miles, Ours currently has about 55k on it.

I called Scanwest yesterday and made an appointment for a day when I’ll be in town to investigate possible wheel bearing failure; that happens to be Monday 14 August. No Ani has just called me from I-5 to tell me that something that “sounds like gravel hitting the underside of the car in the driver-side from wheel-arch” is occurring at freeway speeds. I’m sure the lifting technique at Les Schwab has caused damage to the fragile rocker panel molding pieces or perhaps a mud flap or wheel-arch liner. Awesome.  At least the extended warranty should cover the bearing, it’s a bumper-to-bumper warranty in effect until 100k miles or 11/21/07. Looks like we won’t reach the mileage limit before next November.

 On a positive note, I’m going to ProFormance driving school (a Barrier Motors sponsored event) on Tuesday in the R. I’m contemplating mixing some 100 octane race gas with the 92 from the pump (half-and-half) to get the best performance from the R; but that fuel seems to be available only in Auburn. Perhaps we can get some tomorrow on the way to/from a BBQ in Puyallup. We’ll see.