MB vs blowing up Saab's

[chriswt]

I had a 9-3ss Aero until a couple of months ago. I couldn't stand it any longer and sold it after 12 months even though I was in negative equity and including losing the £3k deposit.

The car could have been perfect and if a little more time had gone into its development then it would have stolen thousands of sales from BMW & MB.

The engine, performance, safety, ergonomics were all excellent, the tiptronic auto was one of the best I'd used and as for the looks, I was really surprised to have several girls comment on how aggressive and sexy it looked.....I've never had that before!

The biggest problem was the build quality, it was really bad and the car rattled everywhere inside and had lots of mechanical and electrical gremlins

In total I was back to the dealers 12 times in 12 months and that was just not acceptable.

If I were to go back to Saab I'd want to test drive my prospective purchase for at least a week!

 

[pint6x]

My wife has a '96 Saab 900 and we've had it for the last 9 years. Apart from servicing it has required a new exhaust and a new battery. Not bad going.

I had a 1998 Saab 9000 CSE 2.3 Anniversary - beautiful car - completely debadged, same engine as the old 9000 Aero 225bhp - went like a bat out of hell. But - dreadful synchro problems in the gearbox, which needed rebuilding 3 times in 40,000 miles - the last time they rebuilt it, they found the bit which they should have found the 1st time round - some selector fork was bent or something like that.

Anyway - I bought a Saab 9-5 2.3t auto - ecoturbo 170bhp. Beautiful car again, but it felt built down to a price. Roly-poly round corners, and warning lights forever coming on. I had all the airbags replaced, the prop shaft went at 40,000 miles, and loads of other silly things went wrong - I never really trusted it.

I'm afraid I have really been put off Saab by the 9-5 - the new facelifted one looks terrible and has been nicknamed the "Dame Edna" model because of those stupid chrome frames round the headlights. Saab are going to have to do something special to win my business back.