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We have a love-hate relationship with our '02 9-5. Actually not much hate, but the lack of very many dealerships and mechanics that know something about them bugs us. And like most European upper end cars, they aren't as reliable as Japanese cars.
However, Saabs are right up there among the safest cars in the world, which is a BIG thing, but not often appreciated. Consider: The chance of a serious accident is pretty slim, but the consequences can be disastrous. And if you end up in a wheelchair for the rest of you life because you were driving a Honda Civic, that reliability and cheap cost won't count for much--you'd wish you had been in a Saab.
I had a friend killed in a Studebaker in about 1959. The car was badly damaged. I saw what was left of the car and was amazed to learn that the only support for the roof was that the sheet metal was bent to accept the windshield and support the roof while driving. The roof pillar was simply hollow sheet metal. Would easily collapse if the car rolled. Most cars were built that way. But on our '72 Saab, there were "T" shaped beams that came down through the hollow roof pillars and were welded to a metal plate, which in turn was attached to the inside of the wheel well. The hood was wider than the windshield so that it couldn't come thru the windshield and decapitate the occupants. And there were hooks on the back of the hood that lined up with holes in the firewall, to control the collapse of the hood, reducing the severity of the impact.
In the early days of Saab, a company director was killed when he hit a moose. After that, Saabs were designed to protect occupants in case of a collision with large animals.
I see Acura is now advertising one model is built with crumple zones to reduce the force of the impact in case of an accident. My '72 Saab had that.
You can look at crash tests to evaluate safety, but the engineers know how the crash tests will be done and can design for that specifically. Yes, it improves safety, but real world accidents are rarely duplicates of the crash tests. You can count air bags and other stuff, but you can't see how the car is designed to protect your body. Saab has done this for several decades; most American and Japanese brands are new to the game.
So if your tender body is important to you, Saabs and other upper scale European brands should be high on your list. But the trade off compared to Toyota and Honda is reliability.
Saabs have a few things that go wrong that really bug us because Saab has known about them for 10 years and has done nothing to fix them. The information display, the coolant bypass valve (well, it's a GM part; I don't know if they had a choice) and the headlight relay come to mind. The Japanese would have redesigned them for reliability as soon as they learned there was a problem. When the bypass valve went out, we had to have it towed, which doubled the repair cost, to about $400 for a part that costs $42 (or $90 if you buy the genuine Saab part). The mechanic we now use says when it goes bad, they just bypass the bypass and it only makes a few degrees difference.
We love the way the car drives & handles, we love the interior which still looks almost new after 110K miles--when passengers get in for the first time, they almost always say, "Wow, this is a really nice car!". Before ethanol, we saw 35 mpg on the highway, although I think the SID lies a little.
One more thing: Saabs were designed for the snow. When we lived in Montana, we never chained up our Saab, even to go up the mountain to ski. On her way to work, my wife got forced off a icy road by an out of control car. Snow on the road shoulder was about 8" deep. After she calmed down, she put it in gear and drove back onto the highway. There was a hill near our house. People came out from town to sled on it--it was a great run; you could go about 1,000 feet. The only vehicles able to go up that hill without chains were 4WD's, VW beetles and our Saab.
posted by 72.19.48...
, Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:23:01, Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:48:28
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