The Neal Boys™ .::. Kenny Neal

Winter 2009: My Saab had break problems

Saab 2001 SE

I have always been a loyal Honda owner for the last 8 years. So I kind of surprised myself when I bought a 2001 Saab 9-3. Maybe it was the creature comforts, like heated seats, indash temp/mpg/etc. Or more likely, it was the thrill of getting tossed back into my seat when the turbo kicked in. But for whatever reason, it was a buy I definitely enjoyed for my first few months of ownership... Then I started to notice something not so cool. The ABS light would come on intermittently. When it would come on, the BRAKE, and general something-is-up light would come on(if you are a Saab owner, you know what I mean, the red triangular "!" light), after these came on for ~1 second, the speedo would drop down to 0. No bueno! Well, when I started to look into it, it turns out it's usually a faulty ABS module. These modules are $2524.00 new, but I was quoted from my dealership at 3600 to replace it. I said bullshit... I'd take care of it myself at that cost!

So I pulled the unit out, turns out that Saab farms out the creation of their ABS Controller System to Bosch. The unit is refered to as their 5.3 model. The inside of it is a computer (pictures available at http://passat-b5.ru/remont/abs/). Apparently the contacts from the chip to the board are not bonded securely, and apparently those are the point of failure on these units. As I have some experience with soldering and have done some surface mount soldering, I had intended to resolder the contacts from the connector to the microchip surface, however, the contacts are so small that I decided not to mess it up and have to pay the $2,500+ to replace it, I opted instead to send it off to someone else who does it professionally. I went again to google, and eventually came across http://www.cheapabs.com/. Which does the repair for $110 (including shipping). I emailed back and forth with the website owner, and the guy who does the repair, Matt, who agreed to take a look at the unit and test it before repairing it. With this confirmation, I sent the unit off for repair. Once the unit was returned (about 6 days round trip), I installed it have haven't seen the light come on since.

Here are some websites I found useful in working on the car:

Russian website which contains some really useful pictures of the inside of the unit itself:
http://passat-b5.ru/remont/abs/

Forum discussion of the problem:

Company that repairs these units:

A great website for Saab owners that sells Saab Parts(links to the brake unit):