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Hi Folks,
My 2000 9-5 Aero wagon has developed a major electrical problem over the last few days. It is intermittantly losing almost all non-essential electrics, ie blinkers, elec windows, wipers, cruise, and some other things. Engine, SID, radio and climate control all work as normal, and curiously the emergency hazzard warning lights also work fine (even though the blinkers don't). No errors on the SID, no CEL or gearbox light.
If you stop the car (ie a 'reboot') and start again, everything will generally work again until the time you take the car out of park. As soon as it's out of park everything stops again. Putting it into park again will USUALLY not cure it, it seems to need that reboot. The gear position indicator on the dash follows the position of the gear lever correctly, if that has any bearing on how the switch there is working.
If you ignore the failure and just drive for a while it will eventually cure itself again and all come back on line. The time seems to vary, but it's quite a while, like 5-10 minutes.
It seems to get worse with heat, today it was fine in the morning, progressively getting worse as the day went on. When really hot once or twice it wouldn't clear itself with a reboot and I was forced to leave the car there with the windows down (I had them open so as to be able to hand signal out the windows!).
Last week I had borrowed a trailer. My towbar is non-standard and I think the electrical system has just been jumped onto the original taillight wiring, rather than using the proper adapter plug and seperate circuits as provided by Saab. As a result, very occasionally I will blow the brake light fuse when using a trailer, but have not previously had any other problem than that. This time I did not blow any fuse, but obviously suspect it is to do with the trailer wiring, but why it all works fine in park then dies when put into gear I don't fathom.
This morning I removed, checked and reseated every fuse, but could see no problem. The battery is new about 4 months ago and seems fine. When getting home this afternoon I wobbled every relay in the box under the bonnet, but aside from noticing that it was all astonishingly hot, it appeared to make no difference.
The car has had a very occasional (like 4 times in the last 24 months) non-start when hot, ie pull into a shop or similar, stop the car for five minutes and hop back in, turn on and all the lights, fans, pumps etc fire up as normal but it will not crank over. Has not done that for over 4 months. I had suspected the shifter switch but as it had not misbehaved in the last several months I did not do anything about it.
So I guess my question is, does anyone know what on earth could take out so many items without blowing any fuses? Does one black box drive all those components? Why does it die only when put into gear? Any clues or tips at all would be greatly appreciated.
Not my day for automotive items, I had a blowout too, destroying an only half worn 17" tyre. Sigh... At least I had recently checked my jack and other equipment was in order and the slimline spare correctly inflated.
Thanks in advance
Steve
posted by 121.45.207...
, Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:02:35
, Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:18:22, Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:44:49, Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:50:17, Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:49:44, Sun, 15 Nov 2009 14:50:01
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