I seem to have developed a rather annoying fault in my 9-3 today.

This morning the rear n/s door was frozen shut completely. I pulled hard on it but the handle would have snapped before the door opened, so I gave up and chucked my boy in his car seat from the other side.

On the drive home from work the computer kept sporadically telling me the rear n/s door was open (lots of warnings, courtesy lights flickering on and off etc.).

I suspect that there's a bad earth, hopefully caused by the ice (and hence it'll correct itself when it thaws out properly). The problem is that the alarm keeps going off because it thinks the rear door has been opened while it's parked. This is going to become somewhat annoying through the night and not very neighbour friendly

Has anyone had this problem before or maybe have a solution that I could do very quickly tonight. I'll check the handbook as there must be a way to secure the car without having the alarm switched on.

My big concern is that there's a proper problem needing to be fixed - this car is my new pride and joy that I've not had for long, I'm really not ready for a big repair bill yet!

Cheers

Steve

PS - hopefully I've explained the problem properly, apologies if it reads like a load of gobbledigook

I would think you might get a good response on UKsaabs - are you a member? I've had good assistance there with my 9-5.

I would say it serves you right for chucking the kid in from the other side

Only kidding! have you had the door open and shut now? if so have you checked the little plunger thing that tells the interior light when to come on etc as it might be faulty / frozen etc just a thought

Worth trying some Eloctrolube or similar contact cleaner on the door-switch.
Should just be 1 screw holding it in so easy to pull it out and give it a quick spray.
Lots of gremlins currently due to the cold and ice.
My 9-5 handbrake cable has been sticking on so it's out with the spray grease tomorrow cold or not.
Cheers, Pewe

Our saab 95 very occasionally comes up with service theft alarm on the display, the alarm goes off randomly but not enough to bother me yet.

For the 95 there is a repair you can do yourself to change the Large watch type battery in the alarm black box under the front wheelarch, it might be worth a search on the uksaab forum for 93 alarm probs.

Whenever i have a question, they are a good bunch and very helpful.

It might be a common problem with the rear doors with a nice easy fix.

Does the 93 have the deadlock facility like our 10 year old 95 ?? mine seems better if i lock it once with the remote rather than double lockin.

Good luck

Due to the cold, my rear door wouldn't open properly. I couldn't pull the handle as it would break but i started pushing the door frame towards the car and that would break the ice between the car and the seal.

My problem is that my central locking on the rear doors is playing up due to the cold. Time for some silicone lubricant.

Last week, i managed to open the door, but due to the cold, the latch wouldn't engage to when i tried to close it and the door didn't want to close.

Pushed the safety pin and it hold it in place up to the point i got to work. By that time the car was warm enough that it closed properly

The first thing that occurred to me was to check the plunger, clean it up and put a bit of grease on to keep it moving.

However, there doesn't seem to be one present. I'm assuming there's a system of the door latch switching to earth when closed or something far more complicated and less easy figure out.

I've managed to lock the car manually so the alarm shouldn't be functioning now. But the interior light will keep coming on through the night I suspect. The handbook says there's a fail safe to protect the battery and the light will go off after 20 minutes. Problem is that the door seems to be pretty sporadic, so there's a chance it will just flick the lighht on and off every couple of seconds through the night.

I can only suspect it's to do with the weather as it's the door that was jammed this morning and it started in a minor way this evening and has gotten worse over time on the way home (as the temp has dropped)

If you can get the door open but cant find the fault, unscrew the switch and unplug the spade connector. That should stop the alarm going off overnight.

you could take the bulb out of the interior light until the problem with the door is sorted.

No fun having a flat battery in this weather.

Matt

You can secure the Saab with the key only in the door, ie dont use the fob.


This will lock the car, but not activate the tilt sensor and related door sensors.



Likewise when you start getting the service alarm caption on the sid, you get round it by locking with the key.



There is another way of de activating it via the sid, but it does exactly the same as locking with the key.


The cold weather may have killed the batteries in your alarm module, about £18 lithium jobbies from a specialist battery supplier, mine came from a company in South Shields.


Just ignore the sid message and dont lock it with the fob.


http://photo.platonoff.com/Auto/20071020a.Saab_9-5_Theft_Alarm_Module/

[Edited on 3/12/10 by T66]

May be a bit late BUT if you turn the key in the drivers door it activates the central locking but not the alarm - works on 9-5s anyway, once they get over about 9 years old the alarm tends to get a bit temperamental because of various batteries.

The switch will be in the door lock. I reckon youv got water in the lock and shorting the contacts.

quote:

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Originally posted by Danozeman
The switch will be in the door lock. I reckon youv got water in the lock and shorting the contacts.

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Well, I've sprayed some WD in the lock side to disperse any water possible and I've taken the electrical connector off the back of the latch mechanism (not easy on a black car in the darkness!) and cleaned off the contacts as much as possible from that side.

The problem remains, so I think the next next thing is to get the latch mechanism out of the car completely and check it off all over, dry it out, stick a multi-meter on it (after working out where the courtesy light switch is contained) and re-grease it properly.

Sounds like a tomorrow morning job to me!