Saab 9-5 Aero Wagon Daily Driver Content

Just wanted to share my new to me 2002 Saab 9-5 Aero Wagon. 

This is going to be my new daily. It checks off a lot of boxes for me. Wagon, Turbo, 5 Speed and Swedish goodness. I’ve owned a Volvo V70 in the past and loved the space but that was a slow na auto. The plan for this car is to make in a clean comfortable daily with a few improvements. It had 154k miles when I bought it fairly new tires and appears to have been taken care for the most part. Tune up and a few repairs are in the to do list first.  Cosmetics and some performance mods will follow later. 

Aero, wagon, 5 speed. Yep checks all the boxes for me too. 

Congratulations!  They’re great-driving cars. Ive learned a lot of lessons in 3 years of ownership, HMU or check out my rescue thread if (when?) something comes up. 

Nice buy! Hard to go wrong with a wagon. 

In reply to BeardedOne :

That looks really nice. Love the three pedal wagons.

I had a 99 5- speed base that I loved.  That is a great car has the better turbo.  Get the maintenance up to date then they take to software updates very well.

In reply to conesare2seconds : I have read your rescue thread all the way through and look forward to updates. I will be sure to ask you if I questions. Hopefully this car won’t be as involved as your wagon but it is a 16 year old car. 

In reply to cdowd : I plan to get all the maintenance up to date soon. Rockauto order on the way already. I’m not familiar with the software updates? Do you mean ECU tuning or other computers?

Ecu tuning .  They make pretty significant hp gains.  That seem to stay reliable.  

Check out trionic tuning boards. T5suite or I think you car would use t7suite.

It's a bit clunky to get started tuning, but once you're going these Saabs basically come with factory installed standalone ecus.

In reply to Robbie : Thanks I’ll look into it. I’m not doing much as far as performance mods. Definitely water alcohol injection and tuning. This is a daily driver and in my experience the less done under the hood the more reliable it stays. 

Nice buy ted.  I constantly have to not search for “aero” or i’ll buy one

In reply to Patrick : Thanks Pat. The prices on these have really came down recently. I could have probably spent more and found a cleaner car but I’m cheap and like finding deals. I got this one for $1300.00  I think I did pretty good. 

I’ve had the car about a month now and l have driven it a little over 1k miles. It’s very comfortable. The seats are really nice on these cars and lumbar support is amazing. It’s pretty quiet does not make a lot of noise except for a few rattles with the blower fan being the loudest thing on it. 

The car came with fairly new (DOT date 1317) Cooper CS5 on it and after the first week I had the driver front blow out. Looks like a inner side wall gave out. Throw on a used tire and all is good and the car tracks straight. Two weeks later walking to my car after work and the rear driver tire is flat. Same thing inner side walk has a blow out. I had four new tires put on and an alignment done. I bought BF Goodrich Sport Comp2  in the stock size 225/45 r17. As plan to do some auto cross events with this car.  

The front struts are blown they have slowly gotten worse as I have been driving the car.  I ordered a pair of Koni Special Actives for the front. The rear actual came with Bilsteins already on the car and they seem to be working fine. 

That is a steal for that car.  If properly maintained I think the are one of the best bargains for a performance luxury ride.

I will look to see if I still have parts for one.  I think I have the Saab manual trans fluid for a flush and fill that I never did before I sold it.  

BeardedOne said:

In reply to Patrick : Thanks Pat. The prices on these have really came down recently. I could have probably spent more and found a cleaner car but I’m cheap and like finding deals. I got this one for $1300.00  I think I did pretty good. 

 

Yes. Agreed. I think you did very well indeed.

After driving the Saab for a few weeks I noticed the rear hatch was letting water in. Further inspection showed the third brake light was cracked and letting water in. Most of the water drained out the hatch drain but if it rain heavily or consistently water started to leak into the parcel shelf. So a quick search on eBay and I purchased a used light from Sweden. 

The brake light was definitely more broken then I thought.

New brake light installed. 

Had to do the third brake light on ours a month or two back. We had the broken tabs too. Not sure our leak is solved, lmk how yours does after the fix. 

In reply to conesare2seconds :

It rained most of Saturday night. I checked the for leaks Sunday morning and it was dry. I’ll keep an eye on it for a little while longer. When I installed the third brake light the rubber seal was pretty dried out. I covered the seal and recess it goes into with CRC dielectric grease to help it seal better. I was careful not to over tighten the light as I didn’t want to break the tabs during installation. 

Last week the fuel pump on the Saab quit working. I ordered a Walbro 255lph to replace the stock pump. I ended up changing the pump out in the middle of the night so I didn’t take any pictures. 

While I was waiting for the new pump to show up I took the time to install a few other parts that I’ve been collecting for the Saab. 

First up was a K&N styled drop in air filter. The car had a Mann Air filter that was pretty clean when I bought it. This is one of the reasons I think this car was cared for by previous owners. 

I want to keep the stock air box on this car but a common upgrade is using a factory Saab snorkel from a diesel model. The snorkel goes from the passenger fender where the air box is located to behind the center grill. The diesel snorkel is almost twice the size of the stock one.

The car had an intermittent check engine light the codes were P1312 and P1334. This is a code for the Direct Ignition Cassette or bad Spark plugs. The car ran fine but lacks top end power. I was hoping by replace both the DIC and spark plugs that most of top end power would be restored. I ordered a set of NGK Laser Platinum PFR6H-10 as these are the factory plugs and are what is recommended to work best in these cars. I also ordered a Saab DIC from eEuropart. 

The spark plugs replaced were the correct NGK platinum plugs but we’re pretty worn.  With new fuel pump, spark plugs, DIC, and air filter the car ran better put still lacks top end power. It has good low and mid range and feels quicker down low but nothing up top. Which is weird for a turbo car. 

I missed this thread when it was originally posted, but nice score! I very briefly had a 2003 9-5 Linear 2.3t that ended up getting obliterated by a tree about a year ago, and I've thought about getting an Aero wagon to replace it someday. Very cool cars!

In reply to Tony Sestito : I read your thread after I bought the Aero Wagon. I learned a lot about the SID from it. They are cool cars, I’m really loving driving a turbo manual shift car again.  

So like I stated previously this car never felt like a traditional turbo car it boosted early but never really had the push I was used to with my other turbo cars.  I changed the coil pack being that is a usual suspect with low power. But the car felt the same even with the new spark plugs and K&N filter and intake snorkel. I started to suspect that the catalytic converters were clogged and causing poor performance.  I unscrewed the O2 sensor before the cat and took the car around the block. The turbo spooled up quicker and build more boost then it had before, nice.  

A few weeks ago on my way to work while shifting into second gear my clutch petal went to the floor and never came back up. Coast into a gas station and take a quick look under the hood. Hydraulic hose going to the transmission  has brake fluid under it and reservoir is empty.  Time to order parts, with the new hydraulic line and master cylinder on the way I also order a Krona 3” down pipe, a Krona cobra intake pipe and a Forge diverter valve for the Saab. 

The Krona intake pipe refered  to as the cobra pipe due to its shape.  The Krona one has less kinks in the the bends and should aid in the turbo spooling up. 

The Krona down pipe. 3” SS with an extra O2 bung for wide band.  Both Krona pieces are great quality and fit perfect.  

With the new parts installed the car pulls a lot harder. You notice it in second gear especially it build more boost and has the push feeling I’m used to with turbo cars. With the boost level back to stock I have a few vacuum/boost leaks I need to address but I’m happy with the progress. 

We were really happy with the Krona pieces on our rescue Aero wagon.  Very well made indeed. Glad you’re enjoying the car. Side note: a while back Pick N Pull had a sale on seats for $35. Scored a perfect one from an Aero and plan to make it into an office chair. Damn they’re comfortable.