Following on from Ronald’s question about how expensive it is to repair and maintain your Saab, we had our 1994 Saab 9000 CS in for its 200,000km service today. The 200,000 service is a relatively big one, with a bunch of filters scheduled for changing.

For Ronald’s benefit, and for anyone who cares to compare, here’s how it broke down. All figures are in Aussie dollars.

Saab air filter – $34.85
“Filter EFI” – $30.21
Spark Plugs – $20.68
Pollen Filter – $75.50
Transmission Oil – $55.55
Rocker Cover Bush – $2.33
PCV Valve – $29.99
Vacuum Hose – $1.37
Transmission Filter – $35.00
Turbo feed pipe – $70.00
Service and Check – $175.00
GST (VAT) – $53.06

Total – $583.55

For the amount of work done, I’m not too disappointed with that. I was actually expecting it to be a little more. Actually, we had a little bit of stuff done prior to me going to Sweden, which is hy there’s no engine oil on this list, so I suppose it was a little more in the end.

This is the most a service has ever cost with this car and primarily because of the extra bits that had to be replaced. The car drove beautifully on the way home, so I figure it made a difference.

Two points here:

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Firstly, via email from Ronald:

I’m considering to purchase a 1988 Saab 9000 for my first car but I don’t know much about car mechanics.

I’ve heard from some people that maintenance cost for Saabs is expensive if I don’t know how to do the service myself, is this true?

I’m with you, Ronald, in that my car shudders if I so much as think about picking up a spanner. I’ve had to pay people to do 99% of the work on my car since, well, forever. As a matter of fact, our 1994 Saab 9000 is in for its 200,000km service today, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Whilst Saab parts aren’t the cheapest around, they’re not the most expensive either. I’ve owned two Toyotas in my deep dark past and they certainly weren’t cheap when things went wrong. I’ve found that for your common items like hoses etc that Saabs are pretty much on par with most manufacturers. If it’s a big item that goes ‘bang’, well then you’re up for a bit more than a local car (assuming you’re not in Sweden, which if you were I’d have hought you wouldn’t need to write this).

Get a car with a good history and maintain it regularly and you maximise your chances of not having to cough up for anything major.

Anyone else’s experiences are welcome in comments.

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And Aussie Saab owner emailed me today about an online survey he was asked to complete recently. It covered any recent genuine Saab servicing he’d had done and there was reportedly plenty of room for extended feedback about the experience.

As he pointed out to me in the email, the interesting thing is that while the intro etc was from Saab Australia, the survey originated out of the UK, hopefully an indicator of a global effort to look into service standards and customer feedback.

Anyone else done one of these recently?

I received an email around a week ago from an Australian guy in Italy who’s looking to buy an older Saab. Did I have any leads on any for sale?

I don’t actually know of any specific ones for sale, but as I’ve got to know a number of people out there through this site, I said I’d check it out. I didn’t know what sort of ‘older Saab’ he was interested in, however.

It turns out he’s thinking of a 2-stroker Saab 96. And he’s willing to travel for it.

If any of you European types know of a 2-stroker for sale, please shoot me an email and let’s see if we can put one of these now-rare machines into some caring hands.

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Drew B alerted me to this Saab 96 for sale on Ebay in the UK. As of last night it was going for only 50GBP, though there seems to be a fair bit of interest according to the questions being emailed to the seller and the price has now risen to over 100GBP.

It’s a Saab 96 Souvenir Edition, one of 150 made for the UK market in the late 1970s. Drew’s actually got one in his driveway, which is long overdue for filming. Perhaps when the weather around here is a little less English.

UPDATE below!

NOW A SECOND UPDATE TOO!

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Ivan, my T-shirt partner and fellow Viggen owner, has employed his photoshop skills to the new Saab 9-3.

Here’s his work in 3-door and 5-door guises.

BRING BACK THE HATCH!!

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UPDATE: Lots of comments on these and while I was sleeping, Ivan responded with a tweaked 3-door appearing in my inbox this morning.

The doors have been slightly elongated.

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Jeff K has taken the updated 3-door and done some tweaking of his own, shortening some body sections, lowering the bumpers and adding an all-important Viggen badge, amongst other things.

Cool.

I posted a link to this photo in an article about Future Saabs last night…

John, in a brief moment when he wasn’t busy filling your many orders at Elkparts, did a little digging and found that that particular 9-5 number plate is actually unused and available!

So if you’re in the UK and you’ve got a paticular (and slightly wacky) desire to have a Saab plate before the model it was shown on comes to be a reality, here’s the link you need.

If the next 9-5 actually ends up looking like that, you could transfer the plate to your new 9-5 and tell everyone how your car was featured in Car Magazine!!