engine cut out

did you notice any smell from the engine compartment? A smell of burnt oil might indicate that the direct injection module has just fried itself. Happened to me last week on a MY01 9-5 Aero.

I can't recall if the engine cranked over or not when it happened but the smell was noticeable. It is a known Saab problem and they aren't cheap, at least not in Australia. The good news is that they are pretty simple to fit so the labour cost should not be too much.

good luck and let us know how you get on

You can also compare the smell with that of burned electronics/printed circuit boards. The failure occurrence is most common when making start attempts (which happened to me) but I know people that had the DI cassette fail during normal driving.

Six months before the failure I got a letter from Saab where they announced a recall of the cassette on certain model years (2000 - 2002 IIRC) as soon as new cassettes where available. Thus it was a simple deal to take the smelling cassette to the dealer (using a good old problem free 9000!) and have it replaced for free. Two weeks after the failure another letter came telling me to contact a Saab dealer to have the cassette replaced.

The recall should have been announced also in Australia because it covers 300 000 cars or three full years of 9^5 production.

Hat a letter in the UK Saab club "Driver" magazine about DI failure. The resident mechanical guru, tech officer and Northwest club rep/chairman said that Saabs recommendation for models after a certain date was, every 4 years regardless of mileage. This is different to the old "if you are over 100k on your DI, keep a spare in the hatch" advice.