1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I'm looking for a 9000 in those years, myself, and the automatics are much more common here in the USA as well (damn cell phones and traffic jams!). I asked my Saab repair shop, who I had been visiting for the past 9 or so years with my '87 9000 (also began life as an automatic). They said that the '96-'98 automatics are as strong as they can be made, but they still are not anywhere near as long lived and reliable as the manuals of the same years (which also were improved compared to early models). People do get long lives out of the automatics, there is no doubt about it, and sometimes it just depends on what you consider long life. On my '87, the first owner, who drove the car gently, had the transmission go out at 120k miles. I bought the car with 151k miles, and the transmission went out again at 193k miles. I didn't drive it gently, but didn't purposely abuse it, either. At that time, the shop told me that it was indeed fairly common to have the 9000 auto tramissions go out, having anywhere between 70k and 120k miles. And this shop actually rebuilds them on site - they don't just buy an already rebuilt transmission and install it.
The bottom line is that when you are looking at a used 9000 and it has say 80k miles or more, expect to have to rebuild the transmission in the next 40k miles or so. At my shop, that repair bill is about $3200 right now. If I do find the perfect car except that it's an automatic (as happened with my '87), I'll just need to figure that repair into my overall budget. You can't exactly deduct it from the used purchase price, but it's a good negotiating tool. Unfortunately, I knew nothing of this when I bought my '87. But I'm 99% sure I will be holding out for a manual transmission, because I like upgrading, I want the better fuel economy, and I rarely drive in heavy traffic.
Aaron Gilbert
posted by 198.22.123...
, Thu, 28 Sep 2006 21:10:34, Sat, 30 Sep 2006 09:14:20
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