The blower motor on my 9-3 seized up due to water intrusion from a bad seal around the cabin air filter housing. The OEM seal is foam with adhesive backing. I removed the housing, cleaned off the deteriorated seal, then ran a thick bead of silicone around the perimeter. It is leak free now. Of course I did put a new blower motor in as well. My guess is, even though an electronic part can fail on it's own, water intrusion is what causes the resistor to fail due to the fact the seal on the cabin air filter housing is not very robust. Although yours appears to be intact, which is surprising given you live in Arizona, it would probably be prudent to reseal the housing on yours as well. I live in South Carolina and the heat, along with age, destroyed the one in mine, and it appears to be a common problem. Thank you for another great video.
Thanks for that insight! Glad you got it all fixed with some silicone. Yeah - thankfully mine is in good shape for now and there’s no signs of any water intrusion
I've had this issue on my first Saab and the second one were the motor itself rusts up and seizes to spin. This happened because water got built up like a little pond under the plastic cover for the cabin filter because the drain holes were plugged full with dirt and leaves. I realized what it was now after hearing water splashing around somewhere in the car when driving and turning fast after letting the car be in the rain. Then I realized water was on the carpet. Because water drained down into the cabin air filter it got straight into the blower it rusted it up. So I hope my resistor is fine. Now the motor bearing itself is in worse condition and spins at a lower rpm than usual with some squeaking noises sometimes. Edit: I fixed the motor bearing by using WD-40 and spinning it until it got better but still worse than new.
@@AutoAutopsy Yeah I figured it was that now but it seemed like too much water was built up because the draining holes were fully stuffed with dirt and leaves.
@@AutoAutopsy I edited the comment now. But I "fixed" the motor bearing with WD-40 and some other stuff and now it works fine and still has for a couple of months just not as good as it did before :(
I don’t think I had any issues that were of concern when I changed mine but I wasn’t also aware of the issues with em. Just goes to show that I need to do a bit more research every now and then around the cabin filter area.
Definitely check the seal on the cabin filter housing and see if there’s any indications of water being there. I am so confused as to how you’re commenting on this? The video does not go live until next week 😂
😂 lol. it’s unlisted because of the promo in the video. Some others are saying they can see it too. I’m going to make it private and it’ll go live Friday for patrons and Saturday for everyone else! Thanks for bringing this to my attention
I did this too around 2018 and it worked for a while before my saab was totaled. Saab's are nice when you get them fixed up. but honestly, the insurance payout value is going to be a bigger issue than any repairs. The government is making 0 money off these cars since they cause people to not buy new cars and insurance to cover new cars....
Like most 20 year old cars, they aren’t worth much of anything. If yours gets “totaled,” it’s best to: (1) buy it back and fix it or (2) find comparable private party sales to get more money for your payout.
Hey, As always, thank you for a great video. I was facing the same problem as you some time ago.I've changed my resistor & blower motor to ones from junkyard car. However, currently I get hot air in my cabin, only if my climate control is set to "HI" setting. Perhaps you or anyone else in the comment section has any clue why that may be happening or faced the same issue?
Happy to help! It depends on ambient temperature as well. If it’s warm out (ie, 90F, it won’t blow hot air if you have it set at 78F). Not sure if that has anything to do with your problem, but just something to keep in mind! My only other thought is it could be a heater core issue, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen those go bad, and the car does still blow hot air. It also relies on coolant to blow hot air, so if the engine is cold, it won’t blow hot 👍🏼😁 I hope at least something in there was helpful!
I've owned my 2003 for 21 years mine stopped working and it was a known fault to lubricate th motor ,I removed lubed and its worked fine since about 4 years ago .The resistor can fry form the motor bearings causing too high load.your motor should free spin yours did not
Yep should definitely spin free! I wasn’t aware of the lubrication trick, so that’s helpful if it’s not spinning well!! Thanks! Mine did spin freely (see 7:36 mark of video) so I’m not sure what you mean by the last part of your comment. Maybe a typo? 😅👍🏼
hey man do u think a non functioning ac compressor can cause misfires? yesterday was raining and was pretty cold, my saab has a weird problem where the whole interior gets humid and fogs up everywhere lol. Although that’s another issue, my main one is the possible misfire. I started up my saab and drove around for about 20 minutes then i parked. Let it sit while i bought a couple things. Went back to my fogged up saab and when i started it, i turned on the ac to its warmest setting and the whole car started to shake violently like it was misfiring. It stops when i turn off the ac. (I have no cold ac). Although no misfire codes came up this time. It came up the first time this issue occurred. Nothing like this happened during the warmer weather.
@ i have replaced them (very expensive) i thought it had worked and stopped the shaking. It did. Although the weather was sunny and not humid. It’s starting to rain more and it’s very humid so this problem just started showing up. I’d like to know your thoughts on this and it’s also a 9-3 2007. I’m concluding it could be a vacuum leak and somehow water/humidity is seeping thru one of the hoses. Not sure.
I think you sent me an instagram DM - if not, they're part of the fuel basket and not really possible to change: th-cam.com/video/CrWE7oV2YJw/w-d-xo.html
Another good video... eventually it will happen for me because a quite good amount of humidity seeps in from the outside. Good news... all the bushings of the engine, front and rear subframe and the ReAxs system from my 9-3 are going to get replaced by new ones in January. I've managed to buy up front all those bushings. I thought about poly bushes but they "somewhat" expensive and hard. I'm not going use all the poly bushes in the future... I have think about which ones I can change to without increasing the mechanical stress too much. Last week I finally managed to end the side view mirrors upgrade. They are the full auto-diming, memory position and electrical folding ones from 2008+ models... only those mirror glasses are available... I had to scrap the corrosion from the structure and the black triangular piece, I had also paint the mirror covers, the black triangular piece and primed the structure for protection... The auto-diming part.... damn... my 9-3 doesn't have the wires, so time to make new ones.
The blower motor on my 9-3 seized up due to water intrusion from a bad seal around the cabin air filter housing. The OEM seal is foam with adhesive backing. I removed the housing, cleaned off the deteriorated seal, then ran a thick bead of silicone around the perimeter. It is leak free now. Of course I did put a new blower motor in as well. My guess is, even though an electronic part can fail on it's own, water intrusion is what causes the resistor to fail due to the fact the seal on the cabin air filter housing is not very robust. Although yours appears to be intact, which is surprising given you live in Arizona, it would probably be prudent to reseal the housing on yours as well. I live in South Carolina and the heat, along with age, destroyed the one in mine, and it appears to be a common problem. Thank you for another great video.
Thanks for that insight! Glad you got it all fixed with some silicone. Yeah - thankfully mine is in good shape for now and there’s no signs of any water intrusion
I've had this issue on my first Saab and the second one were the motor itself rusts up and seizes to spin. This happened because water got built up like a little pond under the plastic cover for the cabin filter because the drain holes were plugged full with dirt and leaves. I realized what it was now after hearing water splashing around somewhere in the car when driving and turning fast after letting the car be in the rain. Then I realized water was on the carpet. Because water drained down into the cabin air filter it got straight into the blower it rusted it up. So I hope my resistor is fine. Now the motor bearing itself is in worse condition and spins at a lower rpm than usual with some squeaking noises sometimes.
Edit: I fixed the motor bearing by using WD-40 and spinning it until it got better but still worse than new.
Wow! Definitely sounds like some cabin air filter seals, a good cleaning, and a blower motor are in order
@@AutoAutopsy Yeah I figured it was that now but it seemed like too much water was built up because the draining holes were fully stuffed with dirt and leaves.
@@AutoAutopsy I edited the comment now. But I "fixed" the motor bearing with WD-40 and some other stuff and now it works fine and still has for a couple of months just not as good as it did before :(
@@tigerleon10gotcha. Dirt and leaves can definitely do that :( the damage might be irreparable if it won’t work as well as before due to the damage
I don’t think I had any issues that were of concern when I changed mine but I wasn’t also aware of the issues with em. Just goes to show that I need to do a bit more research every now and then around the cabin filter area.
Definitely check the seal on the cabin filter housing and see if there’s any indications of water being there. I am so confused as to how you’re commenting on this? The video does not go live until next week 😂
@ idk either. It showed it was uploaded 2 days ago and I was confused as there were 5 views and no comments lol
😂 lol. it’s unlisted because of the promo in the video. Some others are saying they can see it too. I’m going to make it private and it’ll go live Friday for patrons and Saturday for everyone else! Thanks for bringing this to my attention
Mines fine but good to see how it comes apart for future reference.
:)
I did this too around 2018 and it worked for a while before my saab was totaled. Saab's are nice when you get them fixed up. but honestly, the insurance payout value is going to be a bigger issue than any repairs. The government is making 0 money off these cars since they cause people to not buy new cars and insurance to cover new cars....
Like most 20 year old cars, they aren’t worth much of anything. If yours gets “totaled,” it’s best to: (1) buy it back and fix it or (2) find comparable private party sales to get more money for your payout.
I've had my Saab since 2018. Never had anything but liabilty coverage
Great tips! 🫡👍❤️🇸🇪
🙌🏼🙌🏼
Hey,
As always, thank you for a great video.
I was facing the same problem as you some time ago.I've changed my resistor & blower motor to ones from junkyard car.
However, currently I get hot air in my cabin, only if my climate control is set to "HI" setting.
Perhaps you or anyone else in the comment section has any clue why that may be happening or faced the same issue?
Happy to help! It depends on ambient temperature as well. If it’s warm out (ie, 90F, it won’t blow hot air if you have it set at 78F). Not sure if that has anything to do with your problem, but just something to keep in mind! My only other thought is it could be a heater core issue, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen those go bad, and the car does still blow hot air. It also relies on coolant to blow hot air, so if the engine is cold, it won’t blow hot 👍🏼😁 I hope at least something in there was helpful!
I'm going through this right now .
I hope it looks good!
I've owned my 2003 for 21 years mine stopped working and it was a known fault to lubricate th motor ,I removed lubed and its worked fine since about 4 years ago .The resistor can fry form the motor bearings causing too high load.your motor should free spin yours did not
Yep should definitely spin free! I wasn’t aware of the lubrication trick, so that’s helpful if it’s not spinning well!! Thanks! Mine did spin freely (see 7:36 mark of video) so I’m not sure what you mean by the last part of your comment. Maybe a typo? 😅👍🏼
Where did you buy the pigtail from?
Junkyard, same place as the resistor 👍🏼
hey man do u think a non functioning ac compressor can cause misfires? yesterday was raining and was pretty cold, my saab has a weird problem where the whole interior gets humid and fogs up everywhere lol. Although that’s another issue, my main one is the possible misfire. I started up my saab and drove around for about 20 minutes then i parked. Let it sit while i bought a couple things. Went back to my fogged up saab and when i started it, i turned on the ac to its warmest setting and the whole car started to shake violently like it was misfiring. It stops when i turn off the ac. (I have no cold ac). Although no misfire codes came up this time. It came up the first time this issue occurred. Nothing like this happened during the warmer weather.
I doubt it. Misfired are usually plugs or coils! 👍🏼😁
@ i have replaced them (very expensive) i thought it had worked and stopped the shaking. It did. Although the weather was sunny and not humid. It’s starting to rain more and it’s very humid so this problem just started showing up. I’d like to know your thoughts on this and it’s also a 9-3 2007. I’m concluding it could be a vacuum leak and somehow water/humidity is seeping thru one of the hoses. Not sure.
For some time it showed me the video titles in my language here. The translations are super strange. 😅
👍
:)
well... aint that some sh*t lol our saabs are trying to die in peace and we aint letting them 😭🤣
I don’t know if I’d call a fire peace! 😂😂😭 we gotta keep em running as long as we can
Hey saab lovers does any one on here know where the fuel filter is located at on the 2094 saab 9-3 ??? Plz help
I'm sure he's done a video on here of how to change it.
I think you sent me an instagram DM - if not, they're part of the fuel basket and not really possible to change: th-cam.com/video/CrWE7oV2YJw/w-d-xo.html
Another good video... eventually it will happen for me because a quite good amount of humidity seeps in from the outside.
Good news... all the bushings of the engine, front and rear subframe and the ReAxs system from my 9-3 are going to get replaced by new ones in January. I've managed to buy up front all those bushings.
I thought about poly bushes but they "somewhat" expensive and hard. I'm not going use all the poly bushes in the future... I have think about which ones I can change to without increasing the mechanical stress too much.
Last week I finally managed to end the side view mirrors upgrade. They are the full auto-diming, memory position and electrical folding ones from 2008+ models... only those mirror glasses are available... I had to scrap the corrosion from the structure and the black triangular piece, I had also paint the mirror covers, the black triangular piece and primed the structure for protection...
The auto-diming part.... damn... my 9-3 doesn't have the wires, so time to make new ones.
Nice! The power folding will be a great addition
So much plastic in our saabs 😅
unfortunately :(