Tuesday Snippets - possible Saab recall alert!
If you’ve got a 2006 or 2007 model Saab 9-3 Aero then you might want to give some thought to your brakes. Are they working OK or have they had you wondering.
It’s not a recall as yet, but the Detroit News report that it’s being looked at:
General Motors Corp.’s Saab 9-3 Aero sedan is being evaluated by a U.S. safety agency after officials received five complaints of a loss of braking power, Bloomberg News reported today.
The probe may affect 49,932 vehicles from model years 2006- 2007 equipped with a 2.8-liter V-6 turbo engine, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its Web site today. One low-speed crash related to the alleged defect was reported, with no injuries, the Washington-based agency said.
“We’re cooperating with the agency” in the investigation, Alan Adler, a GM spokesman, said.
They might be co-operating with the NHTSA but I don’t think they’ll co-operate with this agency. Nevertheless, I’ll fire off an email to SaabUSA and Sweden tonight.
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Chrysler could be going belly up!
One of their parts suppliers has filed for bunkruptcy after Chrysler cancelled a contract with them. That’s Chrysler’s perogative, I guess, but it becomes a big problem when that supplier holds your tooling and won’t let you get your hands on it to shift it to another supplier.
Supplier Plastech are claiming that the tooling form part of their business assets under protection and the whole shebang is set to go before a bankruptcy judge asap. The whole debacle has already halted production at four Chrysler plants, and is tipped to spread if not resolved quickly.
The big question is whether the resultant withdrawal would help GM, r would the wider nervousness amongst suppliers start a domino effect that disrupts other US manufacturing.
filed under what makes GM sneeze causes Saab to catch a cold
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Sometimes you get a case of internet serendipity. Such has happened this morning with separate stories coming to my attention with regard to US-Canada pricing of motor vehicles.
This is not a new issue and has been raised here before. Back in November, GM Canada announced a round of incentives that were part aimed at closing the gap between prices. I don’t tknow if they’re still in effect, but as you’ll see, $1,500 ain’t even coming close to making things right anyway.
Web link #1 - Toyota have just announced a price revision for Canadian vehicles that is an attempt to “reflect the new normal”. They’re not the first manufacturer to do so, and hopefully they won’t be the last, either.
And the big one - web link #2 - is a new website aimed squarely at comparing Canadian and US prices for motor vehicles. You can select the manufacturer and model line and look instantly at the comparative prices.
I’d suggest all aspiring Canadian Saabers take a look, copy the link and send it to Saab Canada with a three letter question.
WHY?
A full article on this whole issue (recommended reading) at The Truth About Cars.
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Thanks for posting the links regarding Canadian consumers Swade. The Lexus IS250 now sells at $31900 which is $4000 less than a Saab and I am sure the likes of BMW and Audi are going to start incentives as a $4000 price difference is not an insignificant amount. I truly feel that Saab prices here in Canada should be about $5000 lower than they are at the moment and only hope that Saab takes these latest price cuts to heart and makes the 9-3 more price competitive against its rivals.
I really, really want a Saab but they are just pricey when you compare them to rival cars.
Talking of pricing - why with the strength of the AUD has the price not fallen considerably here?
When the AUD was around the 50-60c mark Saabs were (Aero models) about 70k… and now that the AUD is above 90 c US shouldn’t we be getting a price reduction of around 30%?. The Aero is still around the 70k mark, which is almost 3 time that of the US.
I know we have a luxury tax etc but doesn’t a higher dollar make foreign imports better value?
49,932 9-3 Aeros? Hmm…I suspect the Detroit News has it off by a power of 10 and it’s really 4932.
Possibly right, James. Though it could be a worldwide thing and 50,000 Aeros out of 250,000+ vehicles (in two years) is a possibility. But then why would the NHTSA be looking at all of them?
I’m with James. I find it hard to believe that 49,000+ Saab 9-3s equipped with the V6 were sold in the U.S. in two model years.
Swade, I don’t know why the U.S. NHTSA would review every V6 9-3 sold worldwide, wouldn’t they only have jurisdiction over those sold in the U.S.? I mean, we don’t have the break-down of how many trim levels were sold of each type, but we do know that all together in 2006 and 2007 only 47,113 Saab 9-3s were sold in the U.S. total. That was in the calendar year, and doesn’t account for which model year they were, but remember that according to Steve Shannon only about 20% of Saabs sold are equipped with the V6. So that would mean approximately 9,423 cars would be affected.
That is interesting about that brake recall – I wonder if the brake fluid is boiling under the hood resulting in a loss of braking power?
Boiling brake fluid and loss of stopping power is in every textbook but you never hear about it happening.
Reason I wonder this is because that catalyst is so close to the brake master cylinder on that vehicle and it gives off a LOT of heat so I would think it would be more likely to happen in warmer outdoor temperatures.
I know there are some issues with the coolant reservoir on the V6 cracking as well given its location and the fact when the car is initially shut off the coolant continues to thermo-siphon back into the reservoir, especially if the turbo is hot.
I usually let mine run for a minute after a long drive and have popped the hood in the summer to let all of that heat out – it is smoking hot under that hood during warmer outdoor temperatures.
Tedjs: these are great points. You really do know your stuff. I hope Saab’s engineers read your comment.
I wonder if Saab tests their cars in the real-world in differing climates. In Sweden they get plenty of cold-weather testing, but they need to realize that they sell cars in Phoenix, Arizona, USA and in the Middle East as well.
One of the reasons Steve Shannon explained for the delay to BioPower coming to the U.S. is that it has to be tested from the coldest places in Canada to the hottest places in the U.S. before being approved. Now, of course being the cynic I am I thought this was just lip service, especially since GM sells lots of other flex-fuel cars that don’t need to undergo all this testing apparently, but it’s a valid point if true.
I found the air conditioning system lacking on my C900T and someone once pointed-out to me that it looks like an afterthought, with the compressor being mounted on top of the engine on a bracket. What use would they have for air conditioning in Sweden?
Then again, the Saab Festival happened during some unseasonably hot weather so I guess they would use A/C after all.
the pricing disparity makes my blood boil! The cost of living in canada, and especially western canada is through the roof, maybe it’s time to relocate to either florida or arizona and cash in on the unprecidented economic downturn in the united states!!! Weve been hosed in canada for so long that it’s not even funny!!!!
IF there is such an investigation and recall, it will be on the electric auxiliary vacuum pump and valve. If the pump or valve in the system fail, the vehicle will be very hard to stop first thing when backing out of a parking space/garage. This could possibly lead to a situation very similar to the one Volvo just got sued over.
If you have had this failure, you know what I’m talking about. The lack of power assist does not remove brake function, the vehicle can still stop. It does require a lot of force on the pedal to get it to stop though.
I figured the Volvo thing would get the ball rolling on a recall for Saab… and probably other brands too.
Tedjs,
It happened with me. Before my first Saab I had driven a Hyundai Excel. Once I mistakenly didn’t released the handbrake perfectly. The heat generated by the cramped handbrake was enough to boil the brake fluid within 10 minutes. When suddenly I needed to brake, the pedal just falled down without effect, so I used the hand brake and I switched down the gears and I started to pump the pedal intensively at the same time, and fortunately I could slow down in time.
It was a very bad surprise.
I think your numbers difference is this:
NHTSA, to see if there could be an issue with all US cars, would look at data from all cars of that type worldwide for a larger data set.