Yup! Everyone I can find is using those sonnax rebuild kits.

Here is one source I have found, no idea if they are good or bad or if I will do business with them. They just have a nice informative write up on what their remanufactring process does.

http://www.revmaxconverters.com/ind...-bodies/updated-oem-replacements/tf80-af40-saab-9-3-and-9-5-oem-valve-body.html

There are others as well (cobra transmission, ebay, and some others).

 

OK, barely made it home. No bad sounds from transmission, but when it tries to shift, it can't go into gear. Sometimes it will stick in 6, sometimes in 2, once in 5. You can try and force a shift with the flappy paddle in manual mode, but it just blinks the gear you command, then blinks back down.

Everything I can find suggests that this is a really common failure on this transmission, not just on Saabs, but also in Mini's and Volvo's also, where it is also used. I suppose the good news is that, aside from this valve body, its supposed to be a pretty tough transmission.

Looking at the WIS, this doesn't look that bad. The B284 is apparently the V6 engine that has this 6 speed auto.

Chapter 1... Remove the "valve housing cover"

Put car in neutral and put on the parking brake.

Drain cooling system after relieving pressure.

Jack up car.

Remove the "chassis reinforcement, front subframe, cv, petrol". That is 6 bolts and a big chunk of metal. Not bad though.

Drain transmission fluid.

Remove oil cooler hose connections from gearbox

Remove charge air pipe

remove lower cooler hose

remove battery cover, battery, battery cover lower section

remove and move aside intake hose from turbo

remove charge pipe hose from turbo and lift away pipe and hose

remove bypass valve from turbo

remove solenoid valve from turbo

Remove cooler hose from thermostat housing hose connection

Disconnect oil pipes from cooler connections

Remove dust cover from upper pipe

detach upper oil pipe from automatic transmission using special tool

Remove dust cover from lower pipe

remove ground lead and clip at starter motor

Remove holder and connector and wiring harness (4 connectors or so)

Move wiring harness out of way

Remove valve housing cover.

Chapter 2.... remove valve housing

Unplug solenoid valves connectors (8 connectors)

Unplug engine speed sensor connectors

Remove the temperature sensor

Move wiring harnesses out of the way

Remove cover

Remove valve housing

Remove remaining screw and unhook clutch rod

Lift valve housing upwards

=========

That's it. Lots of steps, but only one special tool (that looks pretty simple) and nothing that looks that difficult.

Is there a way to clear the adaptations from the transmission without the special Saab computer?

 

Ordered the revmax part. $1100 or so to my door, and $350 of that comes back if I return the old valve body. I found some reviews of the company on other forums, and there was a lot of positive feedback about the company, so we will see...

 

Do keep us updated on this...

 

Yes, please keep us updated. I'll need a new VB soon too.

 

following. 700 bucks for a completely rebuilt and updated valve body sounds like a good deal.

 

Regarding post #29, you only need to drop the subframe if you have a convertible. I don't see which you have in your signature... Ron

 

Nope, not a convertible. So one less step. Bonus!

No tracking number from the seller yet. Hopefully that means they just shipped it quickly, and not that the order is sitting on somebodies desk. :/

 

The tcm can only be reset with a tech2 unhooking the battery only effects the ecu.

 

I wouldn't mind paying for some tech2 time anyway, if it means I can turn of the "auto lock the doors for me" feature. I hate it.

What happens if I don't do it? Will the transmission eventually relearn new patterns? Or will it be fubar (or not even functional) until I go through some kind of digital bonding procedure with the Tech 2?

Thanks for all the help.

 

It means that it will prematurely wear clutch components before it eventually adapts.
Worst comes to worst, Im seeing tech2 for 250-300 bucks on ebay these days.

 

Replaced my valve body back in September. Written up here;

http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=344529&page=5

Never ceases to amaze me sometimes we seem to have parallel universes at play here in this forum LOL.

Went with a new unit as reman option too expensive for me with all the shipping given I am based in Australia.

No problems with new unit so far. Did a lot of research on part numbers as valve body has been updated several times. Anything that is listed for a NG 9-5 or Caddy SRX is going to be an updated unit with stronger more modern solenoids. My tech commented on how different the solenoids looked on the new unit compared to the old one.

Also my tech reset the valves with Tech 2.

 

So you are saying this will work just as good at 487$ ?
Amazon.com: ACDelco 19256634 GM Original Equipment Automatic Transmission Control Valve Body Assembly: Automotive

Even better!

 

So you are saying this will work just as good at 487$ ?
Amazon.com: ACDelco 19256634 GM Original Equipment Automatic Transmission Control Valve Body Assembly: Automotive

Even better!

Bringing back a old thread. Im getting ready to complete this myself and wanted to be 100% certain that the one from Amazon will indeed work. Would hate to get the car torn apart only yo find it didnt fit.

 

Can someone confirm that 08+ Aeros have upgraded valve body over pre 08?


Sent from AutoGuide.com Free App

 

They don't, no. The "upgraded" valve body is only available in reman'd units.

 

Ugh! The parts I am doing right are pretty easy. The parts I am doing wrong, not so much. ;oops:

When you disconnect the transmission cooler lines from the transmission cooler radiator, there are big freaking nuts on them. If you look at the WIIS, it says "remove dust covers and snap out oil lines". The "dust covers" are bold black lines, and they are obviously the nuts I am looking at.

Except they weren't. They were little black collars behind the bolts, which reveal the little clips, that can be easily removed with a dental pick (and not just the SAAB tool) to release the oil lines.

Turns out (sigh) if you remove both those big nuts, you set free some sort of captive block that is *inside* that stupid radiator. Complete with O-Rings on the *inside* of it.

If you do this, and have enough patience, you can remove the bottom cooling hose and fish out one or both orings (only my bottom one came off, thank goodness). Then I took a small screwdriver, and levered up that floating assembly until it was lined up with the holes again (not easy and it takes some push from the bottom, pin from the top, reposition and push from bottom, etc). Then thread in a dowel rod into that bottom hole to hold it in place.

Then you can work the o-ring back in carefully, through the hole, then go back to the top. There, you can now correctly remove the little clip thing and disconnect oil line, then put a lot of hope and RTV on the big nut things, and then thread them back in and re-capture that inner floating piece, being careful not to torque them down too tightly so you don't break the plastic body of that part of the transmission cooler.

I am still reassembling, so no idea if it will hold. If not I'm guessing I will need at least a new transmission cooler, and have to pull the radiator, which will probably mean disconnecting the AC, which I *really* don't want to do.

We will see....

 

(for the record, that drawing and description ***sucks*** to communicate what you are supposed to do... Would it have killed them to say "Do NOT unscrew the oil line collars, they must remain captive in the oil cooler. Remove the oil line retaining clips that are behind the dust covers.")

So anyway... "Do NOT unscrew the oil line collars, they must remain captive in the oil cooler. Remove the oil line retaining clips that are behind the dust covers."

Hope this helps some other 2006 era Aero Saab guy somewhere....

 

This sounds just like the clips that held the lines on my son's 2006 Grand Prix. I bought the clips because his lines were leaking on my new $10-k driveway. Luckily, he bought a 2014 Impala and that doesn't leak... Ron

 

Post job wrap up...

Here is my after action report...

Summary:

The WIS does a good job of walking you through the whole process with three exceptions (described below). Follow it.

The RevMax valve body seems to be fairly priced, and overall (about 500 miles since it was replaced) seems to be "almost perfect". I have had exactly one (out of 100) missed shift after a very hard acceleration after a very hard right turn since sorting out all my mistakes with the replacement. Before the repair, the missed shifts would have been 100 out of 100 times on hard right turns, and 50 out of 100 times even on moderate right turns. At the point I broke down and did the repair, the car would not even shift out of 2nd gear going in a straight line.

Fluid levels are important, follow the manual (with car running, fill until about 400 mL comes out the drain tube, plug drain tube, pour in 400 more mL).

== Elaborations for service procedure writeups ==

The worst one is removing the transmission cooler lines to the radiator. The line art illustration says "remove dust covers" and points to a highlighted drawing of large nuts that go into the transmission cooler (which is an internal part of the radiator). So of course I removed them. Which of course was wrong. The actual "dust covers" are more like o-rings, and the thing you remove is a little clip on there that then allows the transmission lines to just snap out. When you do it wrong, this is a big problem, as the transmission radiator is only captive due to the two fittings you just removed. You remove the second one, and you hear the clunk as the internal transmission cooler drops to the bottom of the radiator (which is still in the car, and which would be a major PITA to remove).

To fix this, if you care, pull the bottom radiator hose, and then use a variety of "pointy but not too pointy" things to work the internal transmission cooler back into position to where you can get a wooden dowl threaded in the bottom fitting to hold it in in position while you first get any o-rings that fell down back in position (from the outside), liberally apply both RTV and prayers on the fittings, put the top fitting back in, remove the dowel from the bottom, and then finally put the bottom fitting back in. This seems to be holding. If you complete this successfully, you are now qualified to perform laproscopic surgery on most small mammals.

The next comment I would make is about applying the RTV to the valve body. I have no idea how on earth you could do this, then get the valve body into position, without spearing RTV all over God's own creation (and removing it from key parts of the mating surface). Likewise, I don't see how it would be possible to put it on the transmission side and not disrupt it before getting the valve body in place. So I just cleaned both surfaces perfectly, put the valve body nearly in position with a 1/2 inch gap, and then carefully applied the RTV all the way around using a bamboo kaboob stick and a lot of patience. You can get everywhere if you are patient. This might have held, I have a few drips on the driveway, I will have to wait and see if they are dripping mess from before the job, or drips from after. There isn't much coming out.

Finally, the manual doesn't give much attention to the wiring harnesses down there, but should. Unless you have two people doing the job, it is very difficult to wriggle an oily 20 pound valve body up through the very narrow hole you have created at the top that has wiring harnesses on all sides. The net effect is that it is very easy to beat up wire harnesses or wire connectors. I also had a problem where when reseating the connectors they must have been dirty or poorly seated, as I was getting communication errors thrown (trouble codes like requested torque not available, transmission bus unreliable, etc) the first time I drove in the rain. I pulled the connectors, hit them with contact cleaner, and re-seated them firmly, and the problem seems to be fixed. I would have also used just a little dielectric grease, but I couldn't find it in my tool box (it of course was right where I thought it should be the next day).

The car now runs better than it ever has since I bought it insanely cheap with 50k miles on it (no doubt traded in to the BMW dealer I bought it from because the transmission was starting to get wonky and a traction control failure was up on the SID). I'm at 100k miles now. Its nice to be able to push it and not be terrified that it will miss a shift, rev wildly, then come crashing back into gear.

So, a tedious job, but I can't complain

 

If you complete this successfully, you are now qualified to perform laproscopic surgery on most small mammals.

I lol'd.

 

Thank you for the awesome writeup, really appreciated. Out of curiosity, is the job doable just disconnecting the lines on the transmission side and leave everything alone on the radiator side?

 

You don't have to pull the radiator, but you definitely have to disconnect those lines to get them out of the way.

Once you understand how the clippy things work, it's trivial to do it right, much easier than doing it wrong in fact. Just pull the little wire clip, and pop out the fitting. And you don't need the special tool to put the wire clips back... I did it fine with a pair of forceps and a screwdriver.

 

3 month update... probably close to 5k miles on the repair and it is still holding up fine, and working better than ever. No missed shifts no matter what I do.

There are a few odd cases where I can fell it stutter up and down a gear (or maybe the torque converter is locking in and out) when I confuse the transmission with odd inputs (like I can't make up my mind if I have enough room to pass safely and bounce quickly between accelerate and coast a few times in rapid succession). That may be just the way this transmission works, and indeed how a sporty auto should work. I'm giving it a mixed message and getting a mixed response.

Normal driving, hard acceleration, and hard deceleration are all perfect.

I didn't see the core charge refund yet, I emailed RevMax about that today. It may be there, I haven't looked for it. To return the old core, you reuse the same packaging material they sent you the rebuilt part in, and you use the preprinted package label they gave you. I don't think you pay shipping again, but I'll have to see if it got deducted from my core charge or not to be sure.

Anyway, so far will stand as one data point who can recommend RevMax as a source of rebuilt valve bodies for the Saab 6 speed auto.

 

Another 10k... still a happy, non leaky, and completely non slammy transmission.

 

Thank you for the continued updates, glad it hasn't changed ;ol;

 

Thanks for reminding me to put this in the How To sticky.

 

Good read. Wife and I traded in our 2001 Saab 93. We bought a 2007 Saab 93 Aero Saturday last weekend from Infiniti of Bellevue in Bellevue WA. 117k one owner and was a Washington car only. It was thee best Saab 93 in a 500 mile radius. Years we looked at were 2006 to 2011. Being one owner really helped. Plus Aero had every option you can think of or I think anyways. We got a very good deal on the car also. I do notice a slight transmission hickup when we test drove it and after we bought it. Nothing to be bothersome at the time. They were not going to budge on the price. But we got a good deal still. Today after getting groceries. I noticed the transmission would stall some and shift a bit hard into 3rd. Would clunk when down shifting under 3rd. We were driving around the outdoor mall (the village) here in Meridian ID looking for the entrance for the theater. It was bad and sounded like loose transmission mount but it's not. Manual shifting seen to be okay. I felt with enough problems with the 99-02 Saabs and will still deal with it as we have a 2002 Viggen Convert. I am taking from reading the thread that I will need to buy the new updates valve body? I can do it myself no problem but it's the time for it. Winter is setting in here and I do have a garage at out appartment. House should be done in February. Micheals Auto in Boise works in Saabs still and has a lot of them. But I cannot drop $3k on a repair. Be worth it yes if that means we can get 10 plus years our of her. She is our family car but the wife will mainly drive it. Someone said the ecu learns your driving? This true? I am not really hard on her and do not want to be. Want her to last. Any info will help. Just hurts knowing I have to do worm on her a week after getting her.