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2010 Saab 9-5 Coolant

16K views 23 replies 13 participants last post by  Beefy59 
#1 ·
My low coolant warning light came on and the reservoir is low. What is the recommended over the counter coolant? Color looks yellow from my determination.
 
#6 ·
Low Coolant Light

For the second time in the last two days my low coolant light came on. After filling up the reservoir this morning with Dex Cool GM Prestone color Red, my light came on again about 10 minutes later. I noticed a pool of fluid under my car but it appeared to look more like water than coolant. I used the AC system for the first time this year yesterday which I believe to have triggered the light.

I must admit to smelling sweet maple syrup type smell from the AC vents. I called On-Star tech support and they ran a diagnostic report with "no faults found". The temperature gauge is normal but the coolant level is again low. I suspect a loose hose or perhaps a more serious problem with the radiator. Any advice would be appreciated. I have no other complaints about the car other than this.
 
#7 ·
Solution

For those that are interested in knowing where the coolant was leaking from. I had a loose cup-puling that was not fully secured. Pressure builds up on some of these coolant hoses and must have caused the cup-puling to come loose. They tightened it and pressure tested. Drove home from my dealer in Concord NH. Seems to be fine now. ;ol;
 
#8 ·
For those that are interested in knowing where the coolant was leaking from. I had a loose cup-puling that was not fully secured. Pressure builds up on some of these coolant hoses and must have caused the cup-puling to come loose. They tightened it and pressure tested. Drove home from my dealer in Concord NH. Seems to be fine now. ;ol;
Glad you got this fixed. Do you have any more details on which coupling it was?
 
#9 ·
I discovered the source of my leak in a big way today. The water pump just went out after only 36k miles. It must have been leaking somewhat intermittently over the past four months. I had never seen any drips on the ground. I'm assuming it would leak sporadically and I never happened to notice the coolant on the ground. But today, it started pouring out.

The water pump is quite hard to see on the V6. It's tucked behind the engine mount. Removing the right hand side wheel well shield should allow for inspection of the pump, at least to see if it's dtipping.
 
#10 ·
I have a small leak coming from the coolant tank as well. Service history shows this tank was replaced once before, but the leak from the tank area still persists. My suspicion? I think the O-ring on the big hose coming out of the tank is probably bad. I will pressure test to try and confirm this, however it seems to be somewhat intermittent so for the cost of an O-ring, I may as well just replace...
 
#11 ·
My 9-5 Aero started leaving orange puddles one day at about 48K miles. Seemed to happen when the car was shut off, not when it was running. I figured it was probably water pump as I've heard of others 9-5's with same issue. I had it towed to the service center. Waterpump was replaced under Saab Secure warranty.
 
#12 ·
The small supply from the reservoir to the turbo is prone to dry out and leak. You may only see it by the staining on the heat shield. Mine was leaking and I finally noticed the staining. The part took a couple days to come in to my Saab dealer and was about $15. I was adding a small amount of coolant every 2-3 weeks for about 4 months before I figured it out.
 
#13 ·
Mine just blew out this evening. Do you happen to have a part number for this? It seems pretty easy to find the top hose, which is a degassing return to the expansion tank (part number 13220153). It seems like people have trouble finding the turbo return hose, which for me is the one that certainly needs replacing.
 
#14 ·
I will check when I can. My car is at a friends shop getting the rear end fixed and I may not get the part number till tomorrrow for the hose (it's in the glove compartment). Any high temp hose will work, temporarily, until you get the correct hose. I think it was 5/16.
 
#16 ·
#17 ·
I just gave them a call. He said this kit is for the 9-3 and they wouldn't fit on the 9-5. Apparently they're much too small for the 9-5. I also noticed in a photo of the kit from another website that this kit doesn't seem to include the metal heat shield jackets that the 9-5 has.
 
#19 ·
No worries at all. Thanks for the info. From what I can tell, it seems like 22955223 is for 2010 models and it has been superseded by 13220153 for 2011 (which is the degassing hose). For the turbo return, it seems like 22955222 is 2010 and it appears that 13241977 is the updated part number. Oddly though, it seems like 13241977 is impossible to find. Eeuroparts doesn't carry it anymore and Saabpartscheap is waiting 4-6 weeks to maybe get one from Sweden.

That said, I bought two of 13220153. They worked perfectly! The turbo inlet/outlet pipes are about 180 degrees apart, whereas the degassing are about 135 degrees. By chance, the two hose happened to be bent to just the right angle. And the two hoses seem to stay separated better than my originals. My leak was caused by one hose chaffing through the other. With these hoses, they shouldn't touch at all.

That's one more problem solved...
 
#21 ·
After 88k, my 2010 NG 9-5 Aero seems to build up pressure, which causes the coolant to escape from the reservoir vent.
This is after replacing a blown out reservoir, almost all hoses and recently the T-Stat. Water pump doesn't seem to be causing an issue, but I suppose that a next step.

Any suggestions on what would be causing this pressure build up and the venting of coolant?
 
#22 ·
After 88k, my 2010 NG 9-5 Aero seems to build up pressure, which causes the coolant to escape from the reservoir vent.
This is after replacing a blown out reservoir, almost all hoses and recently the T-Stat. Water pump doesn't seem to be causing an issue, but I suppose that a next step.

Any suggestions on what would be causing this pressure build up and the venting of coolant?
Did you change the reservoir cap when you did the reservoir change out? The cap is also the pressure relief and is the most common to fail.

If that cap is also new, I would pressure test the cooling system to make sure you don’t have a bad head gasket.
 
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#24 ·
My 2010 TiD4 had a coolant leak when I bought it. Two years later, after running with (a lot!) of leak sealant she finally dumped it all on the garage floor. Source of problem: the EGR valve coolant system. Very heavily discounted repair by my local, former Saab main dealer in Germany: Euros 3,000. Damn nearly what the whole car is worth!
 
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