Misfire or rough idle on the 2000 Saab 9-5
Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When misfire or rough idle gets reported
There are 8 reports of misfire or rough idle on the 2000 Saab 9-5, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 113,500 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,600 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 3 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1999, at a median of 75,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
On 2/21/06 my saab 9-5 se v6 was started, was running rough as cylinders were obviously misfiring. Brought in to dealer immediately. Told ignition cassette needed to be replaced. Told to call saab for reimbursement as many of these cassettes were failing and should not be. *nm
Two months ago one of the two ignition coil packs on the 2000 saab 9-5 se failed and left me stranded on the road. I had the car towed, and diagnostics indicated multiple misfires on a few cylinders controlled by one bank of two. Then, a few weeks later the throttle body failed and left me stranded again. This was replaced. Then ,last week the car indicated errors again, and I limped into the service station and discovered the second bank of ignition coils was misfiring. The 4 cylinder version of the saab ignition coils have already been recalled, and I think the 6 cylinder version should be too. *ak
Car lost power on interstate, noticed engine light on. Obdii scanner gave two codes, 1306 and 306, which indicated misfire cylinder 6. I removed the saab direct ignition to visually inspect cylinder 6. I notice engine oil in the vicinity ,and a cracked idm. It mated with cylinder 6 spark plug. Idm replacement resolved misfire.*ak
Also reported on the 2000 Saab 9-5
Other electrical problem
Catalytic converter failure
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
Stalling while driving
No-start or intermittent start failure
ABS module or sensor failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 8 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 8 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does misfire or rough idle happen on the 2000 Saab 9-5?
Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 115,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is misfire or rough idle on the 2000 Saab 9-5?
8 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.5 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed