My 2005 Saab 9-5 turbo wagon shut off twice while driving in the past two months at 96,000 and 98,000 miles. Traveling at 35-40 mph. Scary. All engine lights on dashboard came on, lost power steering but was able to make it to the side of the road. Put it in park and turned it off, and it started right up both times. (First time I thought I hit the ignition key that’s in the center console, but after the second time, I realized it was the engine) Any advice before I take it for repairs, since I think it will be difficult to diagnose while it’s running fine?
Since you had power to the dashboard lights, you’re not losing electrical power. It could be something like a bad crank angle sensor, which can cause intermittent engine cutoff.
Have the trouble codes checked first to see if there are any stored trouble codes. An auto parts chain store will check your codes for free. If you do have a code, be sure to write down the exact letter/number code itself and not just the description.
But a bad crank angle sensor will not throw a code, so if there are no stored codes it doesn’t mean the crank angle sensor is necessarily OK.
Thank you. I’ll give this a try.
Just want to say thanks to jesmed. Replaced the crank sensor and have not had a problem since then. I’m still driving cautiously, but so far so good…
Thanks for letting us know. Hopefully that does the trick. Once in a while someone around here guesses right, but it’s usually not me. 