Contingency Planning

[steventon95]

This comes up from time to time, but under present circumstances we ought to be thinking about spares for our beloved tanks ... maybe a sticky list of available compatible bits and pieces.

Lots of service parts are generally available, such as:

Brake discs and pads (lots of aftermarket options various qualities)
Bushes (Vauxhall and Opel commonality, plus Powerflex, love them of hate them)

What engine spares are common? Both petrol and diesel? Do any of the Isuzu bits fit the ill-fated 3.0tid or was it too Saab-ized? Lots of aftermarket belts both cam and drive available for them wot needs them. Quality?

Things like windscreens will probably available (Pilkington versions) as long as Autoglass feel there is a market

I suspect the long-term problem will be body parts like front or rear valances, and headlight assemblies ....

[Kev_Mc]

At least for the older 9-5's including the Dame Edna's, there will also be plenty of scrapped cars to get parts from. I'd be concerned if I owned one of the new shape 9-5's though. 

[Audax]

I really wouldn't even begin to worry about parts availability for the 9-5. There are plenty of bits available after market and the control modules are all reprogrammable, most of the bits that fail can be sourced from Bosch etc. To be brutally honest most of the 3.0 diesels out there have already been scrapped as they were so unreliable and are providing spares for the cars that are still running. Given the low value of a 9-5 compared to repair costs it doesn't take much to end up having one broken up for parts and they don't seem to have any problem that is common to all of them. As for body parts, I think you'll find most insurers would just write the car off as again the repair costs will probably be more than the car is worth and they will be available second hand.

In all honesty I can't think of a single part that I can't source from somewhere, although bits for Xenon lighting systems could be a bit of a problem given that they are the one thing that goes wrong often and has bits specific to Saab, although you can convert the Xenon lights to halogen.

[TomPaine]

One of the analyses I read yesterday - very possibly one pasted here - said that the Saab Parts business was independent of the manufacturing business, and profitable, and that therefore parts supply would not be an issue. Though that does seem to conflict with what some appear to have experienced with some components, and my main dealer conceded a few weeks back that supply had become very erratic.

[Audax]

Also, just read this which should clarify the situation a bit. http://www.saabsunited.com/2011/12/parts-for-your-saab-will-be-available.html

[TomPaine]

Interesting. I see that makes specific mention of the xenon sensors which some have had trouble sourcing (and which you mention Audax).

[steventon95]

Good link Audax ... looks hopeful !

[BOF]

'Prior to the sale Saab Parts made sure that life-time use of parts for these cars were produced and those parts are now in stock in Nyköping.' 

It appears that that did not include the self-levelling headlight sensors! The article does later state that they will be available shortly, though. Is it just a(nother) senior moment, or do I recall reading that the supplier of these either went bankrupt, or had a serious fire, which accounted for the hiatus in supply in the first case?


BOF

[Audax]

I think that they meant body panels for the life time use parts, although. I'm a bit concerned about engines. I know for a fact that sourcing an new 4 cyl engine for a car recently was almost impossible and we took the last one available from the "wrong" part number as the correct number was totally out of stock.

[gbski]

I had a panic just before xmas, went to change to my spare wheels and winter tyres and my locking wheel bolt adaptor sheared off on the first wheel (the castlelated bit,  a 2005 9-5) ) I don't know if I did not seat it completely correctly or not. Thankfully there was one in stock with my code, received it a few days before we were off to the mountains. There was sooooo much snow!
 Might even order another one.

[Audax]

I'd advise you to chuck the locking wheel nut key, they're far more trouble than they are worth and the keys do frequently break. It'd have probably been cheaper to buy a locking wheel nut extractor and replace all the locking wheel nuts with standard ones and given how cheap the locking wheel nut extractors are it really shows how pointless the locking nuts are.