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Car Forum / Saab Cars / May 2007DI failure: happy ending
I have an '02 9-5 Aero with 77k miles on it. Folks in this group recommend carrying a DI cassete in your trunk, because it WILL fail sooner or later, generally between 75k and 100k milres. It has two failure modes: a Check Engine light, or *poof* you're walking. I got lucky: I got the CEL. Took it to Auto Zone and they identified it as some kind of ignition error. Took it to my Saab guy and he told me it's the DI. Great. But then he called the dealer, gave them my VIN, and shazam! There is some kind of recall or repair notice. I drove down to the dealer, and 15 minutes later I had a shiny new DI. Absolutely **FREE**. The service manager says they've improved the design and they aren't seeing any failures with the new one. So I shouldn't have to worry about the DI any more. :-) It's kind of sleazy that they'll let somebody get stranded on the roadside with a failed DI, when they KNOW there's a problem and there's a repair order out. But I guess they can't afford to tell everybody and replace ALL the DI's for free. Instead they wait for a failure and then swap it out. At least it worked out well for me! >The service manager says they've improved the design and they aren't seeing >any failures with the new one. So I shouldn't have to worry about the DI >any more. :-) Maybe. The older ones went about 75K miles. The newer TI's (2002+, AFAIR) had a problem and died much sooner in many cases. So, they got recalled. Whether or not the recalled units will exceed that on average is an open question at this point. FWIW, every car I know of with direct ignition coils has similar issues at similar (70K) mileage. Putting electronics on top of the cyl's where they bake every day seems to be a bad idea in terms of durability. >It's kind of sleazy that they'll let somebody get stranded on the roadside >with a failed DI, when they KNOW there's a problem and there's a repair >order out. But I guess they can't afford to tell everybody and replace ALL >the DI's for free. Instead they wait for a failure and then swap it out. I believe it's a recall - in which case you should have gotten a letter. "Customer satisfaction" programs are different. I don't think this is one of those. You might want to see if Saab has you as the owner of that car with the correct address for notifications. >> The service manager says they've improved the design and they aren't seeing >> any failures with the new one. So I shouldn't have to worry about the DI [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > this is one of those. You might want to see if Saab has you as the > owner of that car with the correct address for notifications. It is a recall for MY2000 - MY2002 IIRC. I got a letter early last spring telling that the DI cassette was going to be replaced for free during 2006 (I have a 9^5 MY2000. Then in the summer the cassette broke down with the classical smell of burtn electronics, leaving me in the middle of nowhere, and I got it replaced by my dealer. Three weeks later I got a second letter telling that now I could book a time with the dealer to have the cassette replaced!  Signatureth > It is a recall for MY2000 - MY2002 IIRC. I got a letter early last spring > telling that the DI cassette was going to be replaced for free during 2006 [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > letter telling that now I could book a time with the dealer to have the > cassette replaced! I had pretty much the same thing happen. Mine failed and the next week I had an appointment to get it replaced. It ended up taking out both catalytic coverters when it failed which were replaced as well. > Putting electronics on top of the cyl's where they bake every day seems to be > a bad idea in terms of durability. The temperatures there aren't particularly excessive. It's entirely do-able given good attention to detail. I expect GM cost-cutting was the problem. Graham >The temperatures there aren't particularly excessive. It's entirely do-able >given good attention to detail. I expect GM cost-cutting was the problem. > >Graham Graham: I would disagree, based on the evidence I've seen. Every car I come across with a similar direct ignition system seems to get about the same miles (70K or so) out of these units. Saab, Audi, I think BMW also suffers from it. Even two Nissan's I've owned, an '88 and a '99 suffered from the same issue. I'm not saying that you could not build electronics to survive in this environment, but heat is the #1 enemy of electronic components. Dissipating that heat is very difficult in on top of an engine and under a hood. I think the current round of recalls is due to what you stated: Some sort of shortcut they took made those DI's fail very early. But, as I said, I think 70K is sort of par for the courser > >The temperatures there aren't particularly excessive. It's entirely do-able > >given good attention to detail. I expect GM cost-cutting was the problem. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Dissipating that heat is very difficult in on top of an engine and > under a hood. When I opened mine (9000), there wasn't any solid state electronics inside, only the copper coils. It's the coils that gets shaken about, so the insulation between the thousands of copper windings weakens, breaks down and eventually short circuit. The electronics is done outside and a trigger voltage of 400V is supplied to the unit. > I believe it's a recall - in which case you should have gotten a > letter. "Customer satisfaction" programs are different. I don't think > this is one of those. You might want to see if Saab has you as the > owner of that car with the correct address for notifications. I should be -- I'm the original owner, still at the same address. But I don't recall getting a letter. Better check. |
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