9-5 rear Suspension

[Joshua]

Hello all


I have recently joined Saab World and have owned Saabs from Two Strokes to a 9000 Carlsson and almost every flavour in between, I am a time served Mechanic (not a fitter)

I wonder if any fellow 9-5 owners have had this problem arise?


I had a very strange occurrence with the Saab yesterday, I had driven in to Limoges to a Hyper market and then home, a round trip in the region of 100miles.


I have recently fabricated a stainless steel exhaust and was impressed what a difference it made, so we travelled back from Limoges at a vast number of knots (16 year old SE A 2.3 LPT)


I turned into the gateway at home then up a slight rise on to the lawn, and there was an almighty crack, damn I thought a broken spring, anyway I continued to turn the car around onto the gravel, when I got out of the car, I couldn’t believe it, the wheel was at 45 degrees negative camber, I jacked the car up and the lower arm had snapped at the rose bush.


I took the arm off and re-welded and reinforced it and it is now back on the car as good as new, however what surprised me was it was a shear break and not rotten. Very strange, the only conclusion I can come to is that a seized rose bush has caused the problem, I have new ones, its just a job I am not looking forward to.


Answers on a postcard?


Thank you

[DnstrDan]

Last year, I had my mechanic replace every bushing on the rear suspension of my '99 Saab 9-5 SE, with the exception of the sway bar and the subframe. He did have to reweld the inboard transverse arms (see photo). Perhaps this was similar to your failure mode?

[Joshua]

Hi Dan
Sorry for the delay in replying, I have been in the UK.


The pictures of your rear suspension, surprised me, As I didn’t think they would be loaded as much as the outer link, which is where mine broke.


I hope you were alright and didn’t do a lot of damage, that could be quite nasty.


Unfortunately I cannot take images of my repaired damage as it is obscured by the bottom link, I have renewed the top and bottom links now, it looks as though I am going to have renew the inner links as well ( at the moment they have liberal coating of Copaslip)


Thank you for having the decency to reply.


Kindest regards


John