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I went out and took a look at my Aero wagon- it looks like your dealer is probably telling the truth. I will assume that all 9-5's have the same hinges, and I'll also assume that you bought it new and it hasn't been in any accidents. I've designed a few door hinges in my day- none for Saab yet though. The door side of the hinge is die cast and is welded to the door. The body side is stamped and is bolted to the door. Door side cannot be adjusted-because it is welded in place. It appears that the body side doesn't have slots for adjustment although they may be covered by the flange on the bolt. The body side holes may have a 4-way/2 way locating pattern on the holes (a size on size hole for one, and a slot to accomodate nut location variance for the other) What is more likely is that the Saab doors were installed using a "net-pierce" procedure which basically means that the door has the hinges welded onto it before the car is assembled (with no attachment holes on the body side of the hinge), and there are weld or clinch nuts on the body side to install the door to. The door is located with a fixture during assembly, and then the holes are pierced into the body side of the hinge to accomodate whatever location the body side nuts ended up at. This should give a decent build- but its not fool proof (as you will attest to)
As far as fixing the problem goes- your dealer obviously does not have the equipment to re-intall the door as it was originally done in the factory, but I suspect that if he were to order a replacement hinge it would come with adjustment slots and hopefully this would solve the problem.
Another option would be to remove the door and drill in your own slots- but this would likely decrease your safety in the event of an accident.
When the dealer adjusts the striker to solve this problem, he is using the free play in the door to correct the problem- this will likely cause undue stress on both the striker and the latch in the long run. I would insist that they rectify this problem, this isn't a Ford focus we're dealing with here- you have the right to expect better build quality on a car in this price range.
As an aside- the hinge was probably not designed by a Saab engineer, it was probably designed by a tier one supplier (who would also design hinges for all of the other car manufacturers) to Saab's specifications. The Saab engineer would give the final approval though.
Sorry about the long winded answer, good luck fixing this!
posted by 216.191.14...
, Fri, 14 Jun 2002 16:25:48
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