G'day,

I have same car and have experienced the same problem.

Open the bonnet, take out the pollen filter and stick your hand down the back. This will allow you to see if the fan motor is seized. Mine was. To get the fan out you have to take the glove box out and dismantle from inside the passenger footwell. The motor is a Siemens unit made in France. It has a steel shaft running in steel bushes!! D'oh. Crass. Designed to seize.

The replacement from Saab is ~ £280 from memory. However, the actual motor is identical to that fitted to several Peugeot models, 406 etc, available from your local scrapyard for a few quid. You have a choice of using the Peugeot fan, (which I did), and fiddling the motor offset to suit; OR changding the actual fans on the shafts. Because they are plastic and fragile, I didnt fancy the latter course. Hence my Saab now has a Peugeot fan fitted with no ill effects.

Bit of a fiddly job but sounds worse than it is.

Good luck.

Peter Jenkins.

 

G'day,

I have same car and have experienced the same problem.

Open the bonnet, take out the pollen filter and stick your hand down the back. This will allow you to see if the fan motor is seized. Mine was. To get the fan out you have to take the glove box out and dismantle from inside the passenger footwell. The motor is a Siemens unit made in France. It has a steel shaft running in steel bushes!! D'oh. Crass. Designed to seize.

The replacement from Saab is ~ £280 from memory. However, the actual motor is identical to that fitted to several Peugeot models, 406 etc, available from your local scrapyard for a few quid. You have a choice of using the Peugeot fan, (which I did), and fiddling the motor offset to suit; OR changding the actual fans on the shafts. Because they are plastic and fragile, I didnt fancy the latter course. Hence my Saab now has a Peugeot fan fitted with no ill effects.

Bit of a fiddly job but sounds worse than it is.

Good luck.

Peter Jenkins.

Just had the same problem and took filter out and sprayed WD40 on the motor and it now works fine

 

Hi There
I have a an 03 (53) 93 aero and had just this problem. This issue is a sticking fan as our friend states but this also burnt out the capacitor which then needed replacing. Saab Reading fixed it but my wallet was 250 pounds lighter. This is not an uncommon problem!

 

Great info received , very usefull, thanks to all. I will remember for future but how's this for luck?.. Next day it worked again perfectly, I guess it could appen again & could be on it's last legs.. We will see eh.. Thanks again..

 

my 9-3 is suffering from the internal fan working continually.The only way i can seem to put a stop to it is remove the battery lead any ideas??

 

my 9-3 is suffering from the internal fan working continually.The only way i can seem to put a stop to it is remove the battery lead any ideas??

Your problem cause can have more than one possibility. You did not mention whether using the arrow keys for cabin fan speed caused the fan speed to vary? If you can vary the speed, the cause may be in the ACC control, which would have to be replaced. Otherwise proceed with this tip. To eliminate possible causes: The cabin fan speed control module should be on the front passenger side of the console, near where your left foot would rest when you are seated. As you look up beneath the glove box you'll see a dark coloured plastic shroud, shaped somewhat like the front of a steel tip of a shoe, a bit rounded to your right as you view it, with one torx screw holding it to the stand off. When you place your fingers over the surface of the shroud you'll feel the indent. Facing the shroud from the passenger door side you can remove the screw to expose the control module. If its the original, it will be rectangular with several wires projecting from one end which is attached to a plug. Now that you have exposed the control module, take a break, open the hood, disconnect the positive battery terminal from the battery. OK. Your knees and legs should be recovered. Next, remove the plug from the control module, with an OHM meter or a Digital volt,ohm meter measure the resistance between pin 2 & pin 5 on the module. The resistance should be relatively high. It should not read "0" or near zero. Pin 2 & pin 5 are the serial connection between the cabin fan motor armature and ground. If pin 2 to pin 5 resistance is very low, near zero, or zero. the fan will run all of the time. Thus, the module needs replacement. This module is a transistor that throttles the current to the motor armature. As the current varies the motor speed varies. If the motor runs continuously the transistor is not shutting off the current. Tom

 

Hi , Just come over from the 9 5 side after 8 years and purchased a good 9 3 sports aero last Saturday,year 04. Yes you have guessed it blower motor gone. Can anyone detail what the job entails to replace it. I saw Peters post and it sounded okay.Just spoke to an indy and he said about 1 hour to replace. However I dont yet know my way about these new fancled 9 3;s so some instructions would be great. Build qua;ity on these not a patch on my 9 5 aero though.

Thanks chaps ,regards David

 

Have you all had a look at my previous problem http://www.saabscene.com/forum/index.php?s...hl=fan+-working
It is still working and all it cost me was a can of 3in1. Follow what N2STY said to the letter before you spend any money on big fixes.

Best of luck

 

Will try the quick fix first but I have sourced a new motor for a very good price (£61)Will look at the motor as its likely coroded or some such given the cars age . Got it going again but will kep a close eye on it as I dont want the resistor blowing as well. Thanks again

 

Hi all,

googled saab 9-3 heater fan and got link to this forum, joined up just to add thanks, I had looked at dismantling dash before checking here and luckily given up as seemed very difficult, looking in through air intake could not have been easier, reached in sure enough fan almost seized- bit of manual turning and WD40 oil and motor took over continuing to turn, seems all ok. proper result thanks again.

 

hi.....
I had the same problem with my 9-3 vector sport 2005 model.
I sprayed WD40 from the top & gave it a spin.... lasted a day.
Removed the fan assembly & found the bearings knackered(alot of movement up & down through the shaft).
Tried 3in1 oil soaked into the bearings for about an hour each bearing. Put the fan back in and only had it working on the lowest speed. I thought the speed controller (One that plugs direct onto the motor) had failed. Searched about & found ebay had one for £90,,,, these are £200 new!!
Went to the scrappies this morning, hoping to find a saab fan-blower & controller attached but had no joy. I had read previously of someone using a fan motor out a peugeot so had a look for one when I was there. Found a 406 on an 03 plate with climate control. Found the fan blower in almost the same position as the saab. The housing & controller where completely different but when I removed the motor (Along with fan attached) I found it to be the same as the saab's. Thought I would try this out, as the scrappy wanted £20 for the motor so was worth trying!
To my surprise, the motor has worked a treat!!! I have full fan speed.... and all other speeds now too!!!
Luckily I didnt buy the controller, so Ive managed to save myself £70 and I have a nice warm car again for the morning trips into work!!! Good luck all, feel free to drop me a line if anyone would like further info.
Cheers.
PS.... If after replacing the fan motor you have the same issue, then its the controller. I suspect the large capacitors on the controller PCB deteriorate, therefore a couple'a quid spent at maplin and a soldering iron could well fix these.(Would be good to hear of anyone managing to fix one!)
All the best for now.

 

Thanks to all for the posts and information, this is a recent problem on my 9-3 TiD vector, given what's been said i have a few useful leads to get to the bottom of this problem. will keep you posted on fix.

 

Hello All, stripped out the blower this weekend there was a bit of rusty water when i removed the blower ducting, tried teasing it back to life and thought i had succeded only to find on re-fit that t wasn't playing the game. Resorted to buying a second hand one from the local scrappie from a similar aged car, scrabbling round the passenger footwell i noticed the carpet was a little damp, checked out the pollen filter recess only to find 4" of water, cleared out the drain and the water drained away. my conclusions on this is i will be clearing the drain every 3 months as this is the problem that leads to the blower seizing and i would urge you all to do the same to avoid blower problems. I will salvage a blower motor out of a 406 the earliest oppertunity i get and have a spare blower ready to fit should i suffer the same fate again.

 

Hi everyone: I found the blower on my customers 2004 Saab 9-3 2.0t was not running at any speed. We had replaced this motor for the same reason in September 2011 almost a year ago. Pulled open the plastic cabin air filter over and found a ton of leaves and dirt, the drain tube was pack and the cabin air filter was wet. The carpet under the rubber floor mat was also damp.

I removed the cabin air filter and found the motor frozen. Removed motor assembly and soaked both bearings at each end with PB Blaster a penitrating oil. I took off the fan wheel and installed my 3/8 drill and ran that motor while soaking in oil for about one hour.

Installed and all is working well. I cleaned the drain tube and installed a new cabin filter.

FYI: The wiring for this motor ( RED wire ) Hot all the time fused. (Large Black wire ) ground supply (Smaller black/brown & brown/orange wires ) come from the control panel. Use a volt meter on those two wires and watch the voltage step up from 11.88 volts (Key on Engine off ) fan off to 12.10 volts (Key on Engine off) fan max.

Hope this saves someone some time.
Bob

 

Does anyone know what is wrong with my blower fan, All the functions are working on the climate control screen perfect but the fan is not blowing, I have a 9-3 2003 year.. I suspect blower motor but if anyone else has had the same problem I would be interested.. Thanks.

First check the fuse, usually a 30 amp, it will be noted in the pictogram on the inside of the cover on the fuse block. A blown fuse is usually an indication of over-current in the motor or wiring to it. Cabin fan blower motors are notorious for corroded bearings, which when the corrosion gets thick enough can cause an over-current, ie. blown fuse. Recently the fan in the 1999 Saab 93 Se quit working. I had noticed a faint odour in the car when driving, but paid little attention to it. The odour was an indication! The fan stopped turning because the electrical plug connection on the motor was so corroded that it heated up, then melted. The smell was the plastic melting. Removing the corroded plug, filing the female connection in it, filing the two male pins on the motor with a burnishing file, putting "no-ox" anti corrosion paste on the terminals corrected the problem temporally. I'll need to get another plug from the junkyard or another supplier to make the remedy permanent. This tip may be one possible solution to your problem. There are others.
Tom

 

use my guide it might help you mine did the same, can be found by hitting my profile and threads started !

good luck

 

I have problem with the blower motor. It got very noisy and only turns slowly now. I have read all the advice on here about possibly using a blower from a Peugeot as it is basically the same motor. Having looked on ebay I found a listing for replacement brushes following the logic of it being the same motor fingers crossed, Ill let you know if it works. The I cleared out a good handful of gunk from the water drain and the cabin filter was wet so sprayed a generous amount of wd40 over the bits of fan I could see letting it soak over night.

 

Hi,
I've got a Saab 9-2 2005 sports linear diesel and recently the heater fan stopped. The weeks before it had been squeaking a little but worked OK. I read the Haynes manual and decided it was a job I could do myself. The instructions were as follows:-
Push passenger seat back as far as possible.
Remove central/side panel, 1 screw and slide down and backwards
Remove glove compartment,5 torx screws, un-clip light wires etc.
Remove plastic duct directly under motor and unplug wiring from fan motor
There are 7 torx screws holding in the motor and when these are removed the only thing holding the motor in are little clips at the top. The 7 torx screws are awkward to say the least but possible even if you are overweight, not fit and 66 years old.
The motor was not seized but stiff to turn so took the motor out of the housing and oiled both ends and even though the brushes were worn I decided that there was lot of wear left, I cleaned both brushes and the runway they were in as the old carbon was making them stick a little.
To refit was easier than removal as when the motor was offered to the fitting it just clicked into place with the clips and then I replaced the 7 torx screws.
I also renewed the pollen filter (over £15 at local shop but £6 on ebay)
I am now ready for the winter.
Good luck.
on a scale of 1 to 10 for the amateur mechanic I would say about 6. Cost altogether £6.00
If your isn't just seized and a new item is required, my friend, who has a scrap yard says the motor is similar(???) to a Vauxhall and a Peugeot , take the old one to the scrapyard and they will sort you out possibly. I've never seen a Saab in a scrapyard.
Glynn

 

Hi what year 406 did the fan come from, having same problem with my Saab 04 9-3 1.9 tid

 

This is a old post and a bit of a long shot but I have ordered a Peugeot 406 fan could you send a small step by step guide of what adjustments you made so it fit thanks

 

Hi,

Read plenty of guides on fixing the heater motor, mine would intermittently work or not - wasn't sure if stepper motor, but got round to removing heater fan and replacing brushes and now works straight away as before it might work on 1st start and then nothing for the following 5 starts. Cost to repair about £6 for the brushes but as it rained most of the time took over a few days to get it done but chuffed i managed this with just adventurous knowledge (was for 95 MY00).

Great post and photos.
http://photo.platonoff.com/Auto/20060204.Saab_9-5_Blower_Motor_Repair/

But i still get code 1-21!
Managed to locate the recirc motor and the link arm is broken although i cannot find the broken piece and the capacitor is burnt out, all cogs seem to be in good nick and found the following replacement but postage cost more than the part..
http://www.skandix.de/en/spare-parts/interior-temperature/heater/blower/joint-lever-air-circulation/1030208/

Contacted local (ish) Saab dealer - ordered from Sweden @ 20.72p (includes discount otherwise £23.03) for part number 4869426 - "expensive for a bit of plastic" he said .. too right!


OK, original resistor bought from maplin were of low wattage and burnt straight away - eventually sourced higher wattage resistors but require some shifting as its too close to one of the cogs tested and all fitted and working now. so apart from all the time it has taken parts totalled £30. Thanks for all the posts and links.

If anyone requires resistors PM me and we can sort something out.

 

Thanks for all your advice guys, I have a 2004 9-3 tid vector sport that I love but this fan had to go when we have the wettest time of the year. Rubbish without the fan as I find that most new era cars when you wipe the screen it only smears, as opposed to old cars like my beetle it clears. this I feel renders a modern car without demisters useless. I am now going to try out some of your ideas to see if I can get lucky. ( ps: it has never happened before )

 

Hi,i am new to saab scene,so to begin with hello to all, I have been visiting for a while and noticed these posts around the same time I was having the same probs with the blower motor on my Aero 2.0T 2004,well I took it out cleaned it (I have to say it didn't seem to bad no rust it was squeaking abut before stopping completely)Put it back in took a while it went great for a day,I took it back out and cleaned it with JLM then soaked it with wd40 put it back 2nd time was easy it went for a day, because I had it actually running I decided I was on the right lines and would give it one more go before buying a replacement, any way when at car shook bought a new cabin filter and put it in the car and low and behold the blower came on and has worked since (3 weeks) with no squeeks if I had had the time for my 3rd attempt I would have been £200.00 down instead of £9.00 maybe you should check the little things first,a mechanic wanted £260 just to check my matrix because the dash had to come out of my old passat and honestly if u take your time it isn't that hard, 2nd time you'll fly through it

 

Hi, I have a 2005 saab 93 1.9 Tid. Last week the blow heater stopped working in the car, I replaced the heater motor, but this did not fix the problem. Would the resistor on the bottom of the heater motor cause this, or anyone know what could have caused this. Thanks Leigh

 

Hi, I would like to thank saabscene users for their posts, just replaced my fan motor with the Peugeot one, now working great, most difficult bit was changing the plastic fan blades over. To Leigh42 I don't know if you can connect a 12v supply directly to the fan to test the fan it's self. thanks Paul

 

Hi everyone,
My heater blower has stopped working and although the visual control says it's working it isn't.
I have a replacement one from a scrapyard and the guy said it worked fine. It has a control unit fastened to the outside of the fan assembly which I suppose is full of electronic wizardry. I have not installed it yet because I fitted the plug to test it first and nothing happened. Either I have 2 faulty control units or something else is faulty. I have disconnected the control units from both the old and new blower motor and the motors spin OK (the old one squeaked a lot and it had been driving me mad).
On the control unit there are 4 terminals, terminal 1 is earth and terminal 4 is live ie 12v fused.The other terminals 2, & 3, go to the automatic climate control unit (according to Haynes), is there any way of testing the control unit whilst it is out of the car and attached to the blower motor that anyone knows.

Thanks,
Glynn

 

MCC or ACC..check the 40amp maxi fuse in fascia fb