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This post is going to be long, as I would have appreciated reading it before I replaced my wind deflector arms. This consists of information I learned talking to mechanics, part suppliers, reading posts on this site and doing it once myself.
The problem
The piece that breaks on the mind deflector arms is actually the small plastic part that anchors the arms to the moon roof, especially in places like Texas where the heat causes the plastic to become incredibly brittle. Apparently in most cases this only causes the moon roof to make a clicking noise when opened or closed, but there is the small possibility that it could hinder the movement of the window.
The part
Saab used to sell just the wind deflector arms for around $40 a pop, but realized that they could sell the whole assembly for $200+, so unfortunately you may be stuck paying for that entire piece. Lucky for us we have some really nice mechanics at our local dealer that offered to save the arms that weren’t broken off of the wind deflectors that they replaced that only had one arm broken. Perhaps you can sweet talk a mechanic to do the same for you…
The installation
A well trained monkey could easily do this installation. All you have to do is pop the brass circular clip off the pin that connects the arms to the actual wind deflector and push the pin out, taking care not to lose either piece. Then pop out the plastic anchor from the gutter it sits in (you can slide it toward the rear of the car where the gutter gets wider, if you don’t want to break it more). Installation is exactly the same, just pop the two plastic protrusions into the corresponding holes and the one clip into the recession it fits in. Then slide the pin back through the wind deflector and into the new arm and carefully pop the brass clip back on (takes a little finesse). One post on this site recommended using windshield urethane (the glue that holds windshields on) on the clip so that it does not pop back up even in the event it does break. I used a super glue, since I had it on hand. Of course it is important to realize that if it were to break again, having pieces of it glued down would be much harder to get out, but I’m willing to run that risk. I did not replace the entire assembly, but wouldn’t imagine it would be that hard, and would probably involve taking the two screw on the base of the wind deflector out…
Other options
Some people on this site had mentioned that they had taken the entire wind deflector out, and live just fine without, which I probably would have considered had we not gotten the parts for free. All the wind deflector does is reduce the wind buffeting in the car. Of course you could always have your local dealer or indie shop do the repair for you, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Our local indie shop quoted us 2 hours of labor, it took me (a relatively inexperienced mechanic) 45 minutes tops. We won’t be going back there…
Hope this helps people. Cheers~
posted by 70.112.38...
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