Car experts - What about a SAAB?

[BensMom]

I have a chance to buy an older, well kept Saab.

We need another vehicle and I can afford this one.
It looks like it has a good personality, and I would be purchasing from a friend. That makes it a win-win situation.

Anything else I need to know?

[ClarkUSA]

1. Expensive to fix...

check into the cost of repair parts, because buying Saab brand can be exhorbitant, if you care about these things.

They are one of my fav cars.

[MrUnderhill]

2. Depends on HOW old.

The older Saabs were really wonderful cars. I had a 68 Saab 96 and a '74 Saab 99EMS. Both were great cars with tons of "personality".

But you DO need to be relatively handy. They're expensive to fix and nowhere near as reliable as a Honda.

[Nite Owl]

3. What model and year is it?

I'm thinking of getting one too. I had a 9-5 , '00 and it was the funnest car I ever owned. It had no problems but it was new and they are quirky and expensive to fix. I want a 9-3 aero but practically should go for the wagon.

[K8-EEE]

4. I Bought A Saab 9.5 Wagon Last May

Absolutely LOVE IT. Just love it.

I'm not a car expert at all and I've never really had a good car -- my last one was a Saturn which was OK but ran noisy & hot. The Saab seems super smooth compared to the Saturn and it's really nice looking and comfy too. Of course the first year of ANY car you should love it, it's the 3rd and 4th year that's more telling but I've already got 8,000 miles on it and really enjoy it.

[skygazer]

5. I loved my '87 Saab

It was a good car, very dependable and comfortable. They are expensive to fix, but I never really had any major issues with mine. One thing about mine - it was positively dreadful in the snow. My friend and I used to joke that they must not have either mountains or snow in Sweden because the Saab didn't handle either too well. Especially the combination. May have just been that particular model.

[Nite Owl]

6. Did you have snows on?

That's what I'm hearing that it's all in the tires. I'm upstate NY so we got snow. Lots of them around so I was assuming that the dealer was right.

[skygazer]

8. I grew up in Vermont

Which was where I had the car. Yeah, I had snows on.

The thing with it was, it would get you where you needed to go in the snow. Just not very well. I remember one day, it took my best friend and I over two hours to get up one long hill between Townshend and Bellows Falls - the hill was maybe 3 or 4 miles. We were moving so slowly that you couldn't even tell we were moving - but we were.

We just sat in the car, letting her climb at her own pace, and got toasted on smoke. We were quite late for the dentist....

[BensMom]

7. It's a '92 900s

All regular work is up to date...
New tires...
Doesn't drink oil...
And I also have the name of the mechanic that works on Saabs out his home..he was tired of the office politics at the dealership..

Has my name on it...I am pretty excited.

Ben will inherit the generic "white car" I have been driving.
So he will have a school car..

win/win

[Zorro]

9. We've got 2 9-5s

They're about the safest cars on the road, and are extremely comfortable, fast, and economical (fuel-wise), in addition to being a lot of fun to drive. They have a lot of rear seat room, so it's actually comfortable for adults to sit in the back. They also have enormous trunks -- in general they have a surprising amount of interior room, given their external appearance.

That being said, our '99 had some annoying first generation electrical gremlins in years 2 and 3 that were repaired under warranty (4 year bumper-to-bumper on new purchases). Our second is less than a year old, and has no problems to date (hopefully the bugs have been worked out). Saab parts are expensive, but labor rates aren't out of the ordinary, so repair costs tend to be higher than with a domestic car -- then again, there aren't any European cars I know of that are cheap to repair.

Having a Saab is a bit of a love/hate thing...either you'll end up loving it because of all its aforementioned qualities, or hate it because of all the niggling repairs it may require as time goes on. Those four cylinder engines seem to live forever, so Saabs seem to have a longer-than-normal lifespan. They seem to be just getting broken in at 100,000 miles.

Check out the www.saabnet.com for all the good/bad info from Saab owners from all over.

[BensMom]

10. Thank You Everyone....

I will be driving a saab....
But that doesn't mean I'll be listening to Abba...

[jmowreader]

11. How well do you turn wrenches?

The BIGGEST problem with Saabs isn't the cost of repair parts, it's finding a mechanic that knows how to work on one--and once you find a mechanic you also need to find a wheelbarrow to take money to him if the car needs to be worked on.

My very favorite thing about a Saab 900 is the way the powertrain is set up. The engine is longitudinal--crankshaft runs the length of the car, not across it--with the transmission under it and the clutch in the back. If you have to change the clutch, you just put the car on jackstands, take a sheet-metal cover off the back of the power unit, and the clutch is right there. On the two cars I've put clutches in, either the transmission (my Honda) or the engine (my VW) has to come out. (Mitigating factor on the VW: I can get the engine out of a Volkswagen in twelve minutes. I did one on my lunch hour and wasn't late coming back to work.) Saab 9000 owners aren't that lucky.

If you know how to work on cars, learning to work on a Saab isn't going to be that big of a deal.