There were two service bulletins from Saab waiting for us. One concerned the rear wheel well on the right side. They want to make sure there is enough drainage to keep the electronics protected from moisture.
The other bulletin concerns some of the wires under the seats. The insulation might be too thin to withstand the tooth of time, so Urban inspected them and put them out of harm’s way with some insulator tape.
I asked Urban if there was a setting for displaying the real engine temperature. It was mentioned once in comments here that the engine temperature gauge will always be at the halfway-point during normal operation. Only when the engine is overheating will it point up. There is nothing in-between unlike the 9000’s temp gauge. In older 9-5s there is supposedly a Tech-II setting that will restore the gauge to proper ‘old-school’ operation (i.e. using the entire scale). Unfortunately we found no such setting this time.
Finally, ripping through Europe in the summer has deposited a million bugs splattered all over the front of my car. The guys at the dealership recommended a product that I will test very soon.
Next service happens at 60000 km, and Urban tells me it is a ‘big one’. Hopefully he will let me watch over his shoulder next year as well. Now we are all ready for the big day tomorrow. See you guys and gals in Trollhättan!
Doesn’t the new 9-5’s BioPower engine need oil and filter change every 15000 km like the one in the old 9-5?
No, the new generation of BioPower engines are not so demanding, but mine required about a liter of oil after circa 24000 km. (the SID duly notified me in advance though, so I had a can of oil ready once the metering stick agreed)
Urban seemed surprised by my car’s thirst for oil, but he also mentioned that this was the first car with BioPower that they had serviced. The others had been diesels.
Rune, an engine of around 2 litres is too small to go down a litre which is more than a US Quart. This is because the engine is basically running a good deal of the time on 3 litres together with a turbo which is adding contamination and stress to the oil.
In addition especially in the spring time, the oil goes down because of the water accumulation from the Ethanol. The extra heat evaporates the water, so decreasing the level. Ethanol is very hydrophilic and is a powerful drying agent. in other words it require especial attention to lubrication. I had a conversation about this subject with Shel at a seminar at the 2007 Festival.
24,000 km is 15,000 miles which is also a long way to go because it is about double the annual average, thereby involving heavy winter contamination going into the spring. In addition to the book I do maintenance beyond the rules like siphoning as much as possible from the power steering reservoir and if possible changing the transmission fluid. When it is recommended change the cabin filtre because the filth on it will shock you. I cannot believe what I inhaled during those couple of million miles before I retired my SPG and added the 9-5 to the Viggen.
Just this week my Viggen turned over 100,000 and I flushed the Clutch-Slave cylinder for giggles and it did make a difference. While underneath I even squirted some penetrating oil on the tie-rod threads.
Because I don’t smoke I never empty the ash trays!
Snow Tyre pollution in Stockholm article:
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=36430#comment680370
I will have to double check the size of that can. I kept it around since I did not use its full contents.
But the whole oil incident was weird. It started in Sweden “Oil level low” the SID told me. I stopped, measured and found it to be satisfactory (“MAX” on the dipstick). Next day we were driving through Germany. Same thing. This time I stopped for lunch at Till’s place and asked him to lend me an extra set of eyes. He observed the same thing I did.
Two days later, in Bucharest, I found a Saab dealership and had them look at it. When they measured, the dip stick clearly showed the oil level was much closer to “MIN”. They took my can and spent about 3/4 of it.
6000 km later and it was time for this service. We found no indication of any leaks and it all looked normal.
Keep in mind my car had been parked for 5 months up north (effectively skipping spring completely).
It was roughly 0.6 liter oil that was added.
I asked Urban if there was a setting for displaying the real engine temperature. It was mentioned once in comments here that the engine temperature gauge will always be at the halfway-point during normal operation. Only when the engine is overheating will it point up. There is nothing in-between unlike the 9000′s temp gauge. In older 9-5s there is supposedly a Tech-II setting that will restore the gauge to proper ‘old-school’ operation (i.e. using the entire scale). Unfortunately we found no such setting this time.
Thanks for the information – this has been driving me crazy! I could never figure out how the gauge was always exactly in the center position. Now I know. So basically, this good looking gauge is nothing more than one of the “idiot gauges” from years gone buy. Saab can do better.
If the system was the same for the Fisrt Gen 9-5’s as it was for the NG 900s, there were threshold settings that would govern how the computer-controlled temp gauge would behave. I don’t think it would ever be quite like the analog gauges of the classic 900s and 9000s but you would see changes when the actual measured temp cross a threshold.