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2000 9-5 Aero, auto, 114k miles
I've had a number of service issues with this car (the starter died literally < 500 miles after the warranty ran out...~10 headlight failures, etc ;)...but this latest one was sure odd looking. It started intermittently: the info panel would beep, and then all of the warning lights on the dash that can light up would light up..and the speedometer would go limp. All of the other gauges were still working. After about a minute, the warning lights would go out, and the speedometer would spring back to life. It wouldn't happen every time I drove the car...but instead, every few times.
After about a week of this intermittent behavior, it started picking up frequency. At this point, it happens every time I drive the car, and sometimes begins within seconds of starting up. Also, it doesn't always return to normal after a minute or so..sometimes persisting the remainder of the drive (having no speedometer is not so great!).
Possibly related: when this intermittently began, I have since seen 'failed brake light' messages on the display perhaps 3 times...but with the brake lights working fine.
I took it to my local dealer (Roger Beasley Saab here in Austin). After an hour or so, they came out and said that it was a failing ABS control module, and that this part would be $2700 new. The total bill (after labor) was expected to be ~$3100. I told them I'd think about it.
Today I dropped it off at an independent shop (Revolution Motors, here in town) to get a second opinion (not telling them what Beasley had said). However, when I described the behavior to the manager there, he said something like "oh..we had an 02 9-5 in just last week...same symptoms. It was the ABS control module. Very expensive part...cost that guy $2500."
It seems hard to drop this much money on a car with such low resale value. Looking on EBay, I've found a few people selling salvage parts (some even stating that the part is untested), but the more intriguing option is a vendor offering rebuilds of this ABS control module (it is apparently the Bosch 5.3) for ~$200.
Has anyone dealth with this company? autoecu.com
$200 for a rebuild of my unit versus > $3k for a new one to be installed...it seems hard to pass up the rebuild, as even if it didn't work out, I wouldn't be out that much..but if it did work out, I'd have a 10x cheaper solution.
Suggestions / comments? Thanks.
posted by 24.27.2...
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