New 9000 acquisition

[carrera]

A couple of days later from the MOT & I took the time this afternoon to insure the car (reasonable) & tax it (completely unreasonable) for £325

Before taking to the road I gave her another blast off with the pressure washer, then cleaned & conditioned the leather seats. She smells nicer now as well.

Drove her home. On the dual carriageway I forgot to change into 5th, they really are geared high aren't they. Everything seems fine, except for some vibration which i suspect is wheel balance, or perhaps more precisely tyre balance as a consequence of some of them being deflated for a long time. Maybe they will return to being round again after a bit of use, perhaps replacement tyres will be needed

Anyway, here's some pics, taking advantage of the bright setting sun which caused some unexpected reflections

[sgould]

A Devon registration! My family had many of those...

[carrera]

Well, you made me do it 

There's quite a bit of history with the car, including the Saab Delivery Program handover sheet.

Also, there's the original Saab Extra Care booklet which shows the original owner hailed from Weston Colville (Cambs) and the dealer was Continental cars of Stanstead. I think it's been an East Anglian car all of its life, until now.

I suppose it was registered by a Devon dealer & then transferred through the Saab dealer network ?

[sgould]

It could have been, or a personal choice of plate? Personal plate seems unlikely.

My 9-5 was originally bought by a geotechnical engineer in Barnstaple, North Devon from St Georges Saab in Exeter.  Somehow he moved it on after 10 months. 

The Carlsson came with a North East registration (NK11...) but was owned from new by a man from Wigan.  There must be some karma there. My first Saab was bought from a dealer in Plymouth at three years old, but that was also owned by a man from Wigan from new.  All the Carlssons were built in 2010 (ours was built in July 2010) but it wasn't registered until April 2011.  So Saab must have moved a lot of cars around the country.

[Audax]

Also, there's the original Saab Extra Care booklet which shows the original owner hailed from Weston Colville (Cambs) and the dealer was Continental cars of Stanstead. I think it's been an East Anglian car all of its life, until now.

The old founders of continental cars still do Saab parts sales: https://saabpartsdirect.co.uk/?page_id=2

There's a good chance that the car might have been registered by the dealer as a sale so they'd hit a sales target and then they punted it around the dealer network. Some of the incentives like the Saab 100 club made it worthwhile at the time...

[carrera]

Interesting, having looked on their website, what was the "elite Saab 100 club" ?

[sgould]

I have used Saab Parts Direct a few times.  I found it best to phone as the website prices are not up to date.

[Audax]

Interesting, having looked on their website, what was the "elite Saab 100 club" ?

I think it was selling 100 cars in a sales quarter (3 months). I was told If you hit the target you got flown to the Saab factory for a week of tours, fancy hotel and driving experiences.

[carrera]

Ah well, that would trigger some pre-registrations if close to the limit.

I have a second key & remote fob for the car. The fob had no batteries in it, which is a reasonable enough excuse for not working.

Treated the fob to two new batteries this evening and she now flashes green and red, depending on the button, but there's no response from the central locking.

Any ideas what I might need to do to "re-pair" the fob to the car

I tried 5 button presses, but that didn't work

Any suggestions ?

[carrera]

Most disappointing news...


After trying to get the fob working I ended up "Sending immobilisor code", which seemed to be fine. I think, but am not sure, that the car started after doing this.

Anyway, after dismantling the second fob I tried it again & it seemed to be recognised a couple of times by Tech II. Great, then the bad news...

I went to start the car and it would not start, as though the immo was on

Checked the VSS status in Tech II and it said that the correct code was in use. Strange.

OK, so let's see what the engine says, so went to read codes in Trionic. No response, check cable / car selection

So, I then used a far less fussy OBD reader...... which also could not connect to the ECU, now I'm getting worried, so thought it would be worthwhile doing a backup of the T5 ECU

I've done T7 many times using a combi adapter, so tried T5 suite, which couldn't connect. Bit worried that the gear may not work for reading the ECU so found T5CanFlasher which includes combi adapter as a connection technique

That also cannot connect, saying it could not upload the bootloader. Combiadapter has a 12v power supply

Any advice appreciated to help me understand just how big of a hole I am in & what I can do to recover from it

I have already cross posted to UKS & Trionic forums. I have a feeling I'm going home in a different car 

[carrera]

I'm home in a different car.

So it seems that the T5 & T7 ECU connections are different, so I need to make up a modified connector, which I am trying to construct using a dodgy 3.0 V6 wiring loom to get the pins & wires.

Time for some head scratching to understand what might have happened.

I did try the the simple stuff of making sure that the fuses (5 of them in total) had not blown, particularly the 5A ECU fuse

Quite disappointing

[sgould]

I’m not too bad at DC electrics, but some of the Saab wiring is beyond me.  Well, it’s more that I run out of patience try to figure it out. 

[carrera]

I'm confused:

Got a replacement ECU, fitted it, sent the IMMO code & all seemed well. Decided to try and read it with T5 suite, wanted to take a backup and it didn't work. Then it wouldn't start the car. So put the original back in and it worked 

Messed with the second fob, lights flashing, intermittently actually worked, so decided contact spray & reflowing the switch contacts was the route to go. There was a whisker of solder in the wrong place, so no lights flashing. Cleaned it up, lights flash again, but not recognised by the car, so cannot be paired  identified as paired

Then I start getting P1641 errors, VSS code wrong.. Then it would start, but only after locking / unlocking. If I started the car, then switched off I would need to do the lock / unlock all over again. Previously, so long as the key remained in the barrel, all would be fine ( think about stalling at lights, that's the behaviou you would expect)

Then I pulled the radio fuse 19 & the 5 amp ECU  fuse. Normal behaviour resumed

Has anybody got a reference document for VSS, or v44 of Tech II

I have electrically checked my Combiadapter wiring at least 3 times, it dioesn't want to work in T5 mode.

 Spent almost all day on this, I need a brick wall to hit my head on

[phoenix]

Full set of service manuals including VSS here for an MY96 car:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/8f7hi91541gu4h687gqak/h?rlkey=yw2fn0xp7l6x3pralj6uaikay&dl=0

[carrera]

Wonderful, downloading now, you're a star

I'm currently trying to get the combiadapter to connect to the spare T5 ECU.

Having "made good" the dry joints on the switches for the key fob it has failed completely. Flashing red / green LED's but nothing that the car can see. At least the boot release was sort of reliable before. I feel like a 21st century Medusa this week