1999-2009 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Had this problem solved a week ago.
There can be two different cases.
First, a small plastic lever that stands in between the stepping motor and the flap shaft of the heat exchanger is broken or loose. This is a "no problem" situation, and it can be solved relatively easy time and cost-wise.
The second situation is terrifying. This is the one I had. In this case the flap shaft is the one that's broken. It is not available as a separate part for some reason (ask Valeo). Only the whole heat exchanger assembly altogether (around US$1500 IIRC). Plus, the dealer will charge around 10 hours of labor for the job of replacing the device (The whole dash along with the center console has to be removed). How does this sound, huh? :-(
Some available options IMHO:
1. Take it to the dealer for a few days (weeks-months depending on the availability of the heat exchanger :-))), and say goodbye to US$2200 or so for parts and labor.
I, for example, decided, that there is nothing that can make me pay such a ridiculous ammount because of a small pathetic piece of low quality plastic. This brings us to the second option :-))
2. Buy a used heat exchanger from a wreck, or:
3. Buy the flap shaft itself, if you'll manage to talk the wreck guy into this. The first used parts garage I went to refused to sell the part separately, but the second wreck I visited, gave it away for 30 bucks.
An "unofficial", but a saab tech replaced the darn thing for 300 bucks. 330 in total for me. It took him 12 hours to do the job.
Anyway, I hope this is not the case for you guys.
Good luck,
Serge,
Moscow
`98 2.3 auto 138K km
posted by 217.26.0...
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