Unfortunately the lightbar (or ledbar) of our SAAB is dimmed since 31 December 2016. There are a few options to have it repaired. Sadly buying a new one at your local dealer is not one of them. Since I am living in The Netherlands my area of repair options are restricted to The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Or it must be a repairkit that can be sent to my home. Below I will explain all the options I found. In March 2017 I did this research. Our lightbar is repaired in april 2017 by DionHPT. A review of this can be found after explaining the options I found.
The Netherlands
DionHPT from the owner Dion Hillebrink. Dion has an exchange program. So if your lightbar still looks good it will take half an hour. Dion also do reparation for former dealers, so you can be lucky and you just bring your SAAB to your own dealer. The repairkit that is used is the one from Henrik Blom (see below). For actual repair options and pricing you can contact Dion directly. See the website DionHPT.nl for his contact information.
Germany
SAAB dealer Lafrentz in Kiel. They can fix it in one day (together with some of the other great accessories they offer). For current repair options and costs you can contact Lafrentz directly. See the website SaabKiel.de for their contact information.
Belgium
SaabSupply in Kruibeke. They have an exchange program where you get a repaired lightbar installed immediately. Offcourse the lightbars have to be repaired, so there is a waiting time before you will have an appointment. For the costs and actual repair information you can contact SaabSupply directly. See the website SaabSupply.be for their contact information.
Webshop
I found two webshops that sells a repairkit. One located in The United States and one in Sweden.
Sweden
Henrik Blom has created a repairkit. He sells the kit through his website HBlom.se. Here you can also find the costs. The repairkit includes new circuitboard and leds. You will have to open the lightbar with a angle grinder or dremel. And you will need some silicone to seal the lightbar.
United States
Aaron Glafenhein has also created a repairkit. He sells the kit through the webshop eSaabParts.com. At this moment they do not sent overseas. However Aaron Glafenhein is willing to sent the repairkit overseas. Contact him for the costs. See his email address in the webshop. This repairkit includes circuitboard, leds (including spares) and everything else you may need. You only have to open the lightbar with a angle grinder or dremel.
Reparation by DionHPT
In april 2017 I made an appointment with Dion. At that time he has found himself an extra lightbar to create an exchange program. So when I came at Dion our lightbar was dimmed.
Also for those who have keyless entry, which our does have. There is no part in the lightbar. So you can exchange it with any version you can buy.
Also a few pictures of the reparation. And I already wrote it, but credits for Henrik Blom with the slogan ‘Let there be light!’.
If you have used one of the options above for your lightbar I (we) would like to know your experience. So please create a comment with your information. Also if you know other repair options that should be on this website than please let us know.
This issue is one of the problems we had in our first year of owning this SAAB 9-5ng. For all the details about our 9-5ng, see the post Our SAAB 9-5ng and why did we bought this specific one.
Repaired the light bar on my 95 Turbo6 today using the HBlom kit which I bought a few months ago.
Job took about 3 hours and apart from being a little fiddly, was very easy with no soldering required.
Car now looks fantastic !!!
Great to hear David! Thank you for sharing your experience.
Hoi!
I have repaired and the 3rd brake light and light bar myself. Issue with the 3rd brake light are flimsy soldering that is the main cause of failing LEDs. I bought 24 Superflux High Red LED that are 3 x stronger than the original with 50 mA forward current and they are made for automotive usage. Those are jusr soldered onto the old PCB. Works great.
Concerning the light bar – it is actually very well designed system that sends certain voltage to the bar LEDs that are actually really fine.
So, the issue is in the contacts to 2 LED groups – left and the right. Very cheap and not well made white connectors are just not good enough. So I just resoldered those by prolonging the wires and soldering those directly on the PCB – spraying the Plastik70 – a liquid resin to protect PCB from the moisture.
I also to the certain point reached with this spray some of PCBs where original LEDs are soldered.
There is absolutely no need to buy any of those replacement kits, as the original assembly also has the ability to regulate intesitiy of the light being looped through the light sensor that is on the dash.
Otherwise I would like to thank you on the info on badly made o-ring that causes low oil pressure.
It really is an issue and it has to be remedied asap. on every TTiD.
Thank you for your comment Astor and great to hear that with the right knowledge people can repair the 3rd brakelight and lightbar themselves. About the low oil pressure, yes it is really important to replace the o-ring immediately because it is killing the engine.
Thank you for this o-ring info it was very valuable info as mechs do not know of it. Although having 6 speed manual it requires divorce from the engine and a complicated operation to change 15 Euro ring – my service house estimated 4 hours work, He also said I am lucky I have no automatic as that would require even more hours and really complicated drilling of the gear-bell housing.
Would you happen to have some info on exchanging front daylight LEDs to stronger ones?
My autotje is Vector TTiD with full equipment, now hitting 160k km in a month or so…what a great car I got new for almost a half retail price…
Replacing the o-ring is best in combination with servicing the distribution belt. So the costs are not that expensive.
About the daylight LEDs I have no information.
Good morning, excuse me, I own a Saab 9-5 NG TTID AERO and I have a problem with a malfunction when starting the car cold where it appears on the display; LOW ENGINE OIL PRESSURE STOP ENGINE. I also noticed an oil leak from the car. Could you explain to me what it means to replace the O-RING? What is the o-ring ? I am writing to you from Italy here unfortunately the assistance is very bad. Thank you . I await a kind reply. Greetings.
Good morning, I would like to ask you, if possible kindly, also another problem encountered on my Saab 9-5 TTID AERO 6 SPEED MANUAL. I noticed that I can’t connect my smartphone via Bluetooth with infotraitment in any way. After activating bluetooth on my smartphone and clicking the voice button on the steering wheel by pronouncing “telephone” or “bluetooth” for pairing, I am informed by the automatic voice: CONNECTION ERROR. I ask you expert and competent people if you could advise me on how to activate the bluetooth for hands-free incoming and outgoing calls. I inform you that I have already updated the firmware to the latest version. Thank you, I look forward to your kind reply. Greetings.
Excuse me then as described by you regarding the repair with HBlom’s updated kit for trunkbar led on Saab 9-5ng will the function of the brightness sensor be lost? During the day will we have the two LEDs of the taillights automatically with low brightness while the trunkbar will be fixed with high brightness?
Hello Genni,
Regarding the led bar I do not believe there is a brightness sensor as it is part of the back lights.
For the phone connection I think you have to see in the menu to connect your phone first before you can use the voice control. Perhaps there is an reset to delete all the previous connected phones.
And about the oil pressure the problem I had was the o-ring hardened and so there was a vacuum leak sucking up the oil. That causes the low pressure.