The clutch is being replaced on my C900 today.

I’m going to hate doing this. I’m going to lose heaps of money selling a car that ideally, I’d love to keep. We just don’t have the room, though, and I don’t have the income to keep paying the registration. Ads will go up this weekend.

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SaabRobz has just started an interesting group on Flickr – the Saab Junkyard.

Lots of interesting photos of junked and abandoned Saab there. It’s sad to see some less-than-dignified ends for some of these cars, but it’s amazing how many of them still manage to retain their beauty.

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There’s a good (and not-so-good) review of the Saab 9-3 with XWD over at The Street.

Good:

Historically, Audi and Subaru are known as the winter powerhouses building bulletproof [AWD] systems. Saab brought its “A” game, though, because, during a recent ice storm that coated the tri-state region, the car held up remarkably well.

The SportCombi managed to maintain traction. When I forced it out of stability, its movements were predictable and composed. Pushing through slush and snow, the 9-3 does not panic and squirm. Instead, it surges onward, plowing onward.

So, not only is it good during unruly conditions, it manages to provide some thrills on nice, sunny days. With its significant power and sharp steering, the 9-3 corners with limited body roll.

Saab’s XWD system is doing well in winter road tests. I just hope that that fact is resonating with consumers. I have a feeling, though, that the XWD ‘noise’ isn’t loud enough to drown out the other noises being made in relation to Saab.

The not-so-good:

On a jaunt to Princeton, New Jersey, I found myself passing Newark International Airport where a large, commercial aircraft was taking off. Burying the throttle, I wanted to see if the jet builders ensured this Saab would end up in the sky. As the revs climbed and the speedometer counted hastily upwards like an altimeter, I did not end up airborne, much to my chagrin. I firmly believe take off was imminent, though.

>Wince<

Thanks Kroum!

——

Much has been made in today’s automotive media about Alan Mullaly, CEO at Ford, calling a customer to thank him for cancelling his Prius order and subsequently choosing a Ford Fusion Hybrid.

Some of the outlets are even saying words to the effect of “why would he bother?” which is absolutely stunning to me.

Former SaabUSA chief Bob Sinclair was famous for his calls to customers, which he’d choose at random every month. These calls were made for a number of reasons; for sales, for service, in response to a letter he’d received.

Obviously the customers were absolutely thrilled and the good part is that everyone in the organisation knew that every interaction they had with a customer could end up in a conversation involving that customer and the boss.

Good PR. Good motivation. More of it, I say.

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Big versions available at Flickr.

I just got off the phone with Eric Geers from Saab in Sweden and unfortunately there’s absolutely nothing I can talk about here on the website. Eric is quite happy to keep me posted on the goings-on with Saab, but obviously at the moment everything’s quite delicate in terms of negotiations and plans, and I must respect the spirit in which the conversation was held.

Suffice to say that Saab are conducting their activities in a manner that suggests a faith in the favourable outcome of negotiations, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

——

Two sources who don’t such faith……..well, it’s only one, really…….are Automotive News and Autoblog. Automotive News write the news and Autoblog re-hash it for those who don’t have a subscription (which is a great way to make money, by the way. Their income would be well into seven figures a year now and the cost of a AN subscription is only around $150 per year).

Anyway, Automotive News are saying that GM doesn’t have a clue what they’re going to do with Saab…..

Talk about pressure. Just a couple of weeks before General Motors has to submit a detailed plan proving viability, GM executives have no idea what to do with their losing brands.

With President Barack Obama still selecting his team of advisers, it’s a bit fuzzy as to how specific GM will have to be about its plans for Saturn, Saab and Hummer.

But at this point company leaders are stumped for solutions, sources say.

…..except they then go on to say that they do have a clue….

“We’re trying to see how much of Saab we could isolate,” the source says.

The next step is to secure funding from the Swedish government to help Saab run on its own. Saab hopes to launch the next 9-5 large sedan and new 9-4X crossover next year. The Swedish government has offered aid but does not want an ownership stake.

The third step, GM hopes, would be a successful launch of the new products, making Saab attractive to a partner or buyer.

GM does not want to hold on to Saab. If the plan fails, GM would likely close it, sources say.

If I were Saab, I wouldn’t want to hold on to GM, either. Well, not much of it, at least. There’s some useful bits like volume purchasing that are handy if applied the right way.

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There’s a great review of the Saab 9-3 Aero XWD over at AsiaOne.

They kick things off with some notes about the Turbo X, noting that only four were imported into Singapore and that all of them were snapped up very quickly by Saab enthusiasts there. One of them was bought by a reader of this site, Shyang, and we should be hearing more from him shortly about the new Nav/Audio system he just purchased for it. But I digress…..

A few snippets:

In essence, the new 9-3 Aero XWD is the Turbo X, unlimited. The car has the mechanicals of the Turbo X but not the fancy aesthetics. Not that the standard 9-3 really needs the look-faster bits to stand out. The angular lines look smart and different from the popular usual German suspects.

And I’ll draw your attention to my own comments about useable speed from a few days ago. Those comments came to mind as I read this….

The car’s touted 0-100kmh timing of 7.5 seconds (7.3 for the sedan version) seems nippy, rather than ballistic but Saabs are best known for their in-gear acceleration where the swell of mid-range torque (the Aero has 400Nm between 1,900 and 4,500rpm) ensures the most effortless of overtaking manoeuvres.

….which was my point, exactly.

The review is called Saabstance Over Style, and makes for a good read.

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Dippen has just drawn my attention to a note in the Saab Turbo Club of Sweden forum where someone is stating that the 12th February edition of Tekniken’s Varld will be coming complete with images of the Saab 9-3x.

Can’t wait!

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Clive M was the first guy to place an order for a Turbo X here in Australia. He’s pretty passionate about the car, passionate enough to convince someone to customise the message his Turbo X shows at start-up:

He’s also passionate enough to put together some thoughts about a road test that was published here in Australia in September last year.

The test was featured in The Australian, a broadsheet newspaper here that’s smack-bang in the heart of the demographic that Saab would like to reach. You can read the review (if you dare) by clicking here.

This all goes to show how wrong a motoring journo can be, as well as showing (again) that having the automatic version of the Turbo X as their press car was a wrong move by Saab Oz.

Clive’s thoughts:

The second photo is a shot of my Turbo X Sid showing 8.8 Litres/100km part way through a 2.5 hr country drive averaging 100 Kph. In fact, at the end of the trip it was down to 8.3 l/100.

The significance of the second photo is that the journo for The Australian newspaper car reviews recently went beyond reasonable accurate comment on the Turbo X, or should l say probably Saabs in general, including these pearls of wisdom:

* the car was black
* the brakes were inadequate
* the fuel usage was 16l/100km
* the car was noisy
* the suspension was hard
* it had turbo lag and wait for it ……
* the best one was the car had torque steer!!

l will take the last one first. How does the XWD Turbo X have torque steer when the complete XWD system directs power proportionally in a nano second across all wheels? You cannot even induce torque steer in this car.

The high litres per Kms you get when you absolutely nail this beast constantly with full screaming revs which of course all sane and thinking people do when driving in the city, and hey yesiree the Turbo X is black (actually he got that one right ).

The brakes are fantastic – l know as l worked for a number of years with a international brake manufacturer. And gosh golly gee, the suspension is actually set up for performance not marshmallow soft like his office chair.

l usually don’t take all that much notice of some journo who has been given the job of reviewing cars after a few years in the restaurant reports or travel section and hates the job, however l will make an exception this time.

It just goes to show how important it is to get the press car right. As mentioned, The Oz newspaper is one that’s read by many of the people that Saab would love to reach as customers. To have the car (inaccurately) panned as it was in that review was a dagger in the heart of that model launch.

Clive’s experience also goes to show that ownership of a vehicle is a very different thing to a guy getting it for a few days (or even just hours).

We have car reviews because people want to read them. Unfortunately, we don’t always have car reviewers who take the ownership experience or model variations into account. And like the torque steer case noted above, we have car reviewers who can be just flat-out wrong.

One thing to remember in this whoe GM-Saab reorganisation this is that even if Saab are made more autonomous – a scenario we’d all like to see – they’ll most likely still be part of GM for the foreseeable future.

Which means if GM goes under then Saab go under, too.

GM still have a bucketload of reorganisation to do in order to satisfy the US government to hold off calling in the suits and forcing an orderly bankruptcy proceeding. They’ve got to convince bondholders to exchange their debto for equity, which isn’t a foregone conclusion just yet.

Then there’s the market conditions. GM have released their own revision to the market conditions they used for their submission to Congress – and they revised the number down. Their initial projections were based on 12 million US sales in 2009. They’re now predicting a conservative base case of 10.5 million sales, which was their worst case scenario when they spoke to Congress.

——

I was going to skip this road test, but seeing as several people wrote in to me about it, I thought I’d better publish it.

Why skip it, especially when the reviewer gives the Saab 9-3 Aero a five star rating? Well, let’s just say the review is a little…..quirky.

Saab 9-3 Aero review at Canadian Driver

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Ivan makes custom Saab T-Shirts.

He also designs and produces custom Saab badges (see here and here)

If you’re lamenting the fact that your modern Saab doesn’t have a Turbo badge anywhere, Ivan can fix that. You can contact him at saabdesignshop@gmail.com and talk about your needs with regards to sizes, etc.

Above is in Turbo X style, below is the original 900 style. Brushed metal finish with adhesive backing.

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Saab Australia are having a sales event called TurboFest.

This is the email graphic that’s going around. Click to enlarge.

What’s got me fascinated is the “Saab – Move Your Mind” graphic in the bottom right corner. As you may (or may not) know, Saab are going to lose the use of the griffin symbology at the end of this year. They had a 20 year agreement with Scania but that’s almost up now.

Could this be the new motif for ads, with the SAAB part being what’s seen on the cars (a-la the badging on the Saab 9-4x concept vehicle).

Just wondering.

–

After a period of relative quiet on the road test front, there’s four new road tests of the Saab 9-3 in various guises appearing online today.

Here they are, one by one.

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Australian Car Advice’s Paul Maric continues his long-term test of the Saab 9-3 TTiD today with a complaint that I haven’t read much about for a number of years now: torque steer.

The big steering wheel tends to jerk from one side to the other all too easily, and there seems to be no variation in steering weight from standstil to highway speeds. The car would certainly benefit from a variable setup of some sort, otherwise the torque-steer and abrasions in the road start taking over and irritating the heck out of the driver.

The TTiD does have a lot of torque, but my drives of the car in Sweden and here in Australia showed no evidence of this complaint, which has all but been eliminated in modern Saabs. Perhaps the lighter-than-preferred steering is the main cause of the issue and if so, this would seem to be a personal issue. I can’t recall torque steer being mentioned in other reviews, either.

It’s not a negative piece, though. Whilst he also has concerns for the stability control system (again, I’m a little confused), the brakes and fuel economy both get big ticks of approval, as does the look and feel of the car.

[Read the rest of this entry →]

So how do I handle this one?

Am I glad that one of my Australian motoring colleagues is getting a chance to drive the Saab 9-3 TTiD on an extended test and write about it to a large readership?

Or do I get poopy at the fact that when I asked Saab Australia or a long-term test vehicle a year or so ago, I was told that they don’t do long terms tests, that it’s against GM policy?

Ah, stuff it. We don’t have room to park the thing anyway!

Australian Car Advice do have the good fortune of a long term test in a 2008 Saab 9-3 TTiD and it seems to be making all the right impressions so far. They even wrote in a complimentary fashion about the accommodations for four adults on a recent trip!

Being a diesel, one of the main points of interest is the fuel economy, which they got down to 5.2 liters per 100km – and that’s with the aforementioned 4 adults on board. Not bad at all, eh? I’ll let someone smarter than me (and someone who’s not writing at 12.20 in the morning) do the conversion to mpg.

This instalment is a fairly short one but they’re promising more soon. I just hope they clean the bird poo off the car between now and then.

Worst. Work day. Ever.

Am not in a good mood tonight. I am in desparate need of another job. Preferably in Sweden.

In happier news, I’m thinking of adding the Honda CRX and Toyota MR2 to the list of cheap fun cars I’d like to own for a short period.

——

President Bush wants more time before committing to loaning money to the Detroit carmakers. One economic agency is now saying there’s a 5% chance of a disorderly bankruptcy and fro the wording of the statements coming out of Washington, it sounds like their preference is to lead the companies into an orderly bankruptcy procedure.

From the Detroit News:

“I don’t know of an imminent announcement coming from us,” Perino said at her daily news briefing, suggesting that expectations for a quick decision were premature.

“If we’re going to use taxpayer financing to assist the automakers, all stakeholders are going to have to come to the table and be willing to show that they are capable and willing to make really tough decisions about the way forward,” Perino said. “We need them to become viable, competitive firms in the future, and in order to do that, concessions are going to have to be made by — by stakeholders.”

She said the prime goal remained to “prevent a disorderly bankruptcy.”

Here’s something I didn’t know.

The TARP fund from which the US government intends to provide loans was $700 billion in total. That fund was divided into two sections. The first section of $350billion has almost been exhausted. There’s only $15 billion left (I never thought I’d use the word ‘only’ in reference to $15billion).

The elephant in the corner of the room is the fact that in order to hand out funds from the second batch of $350 billion, the government has to get their reasons past the US Congress. We all know how well that worked last time.

So if the Whitehouse doesn’t get these emergency funds out of the remaining $15billion, things will look rather messy for the Detroit guys.

——

Here’s one of the best commentary pieces I’ve read about the whole crisis so far. It comes from a service called Gather.com

Detroit carmakers have been hammered about their decisions to produce large vehicles in preference to making smaller ones. Right or wrong, that’s been the view of many.

Enter Gather.com:

The facts are that Ford, GM, and Chrysler spend millions taking the pulse of just what Americans want. Why do you think they spend so much on the annual auto show ritual show casing not just their latest models, but a myriad of concept vehicles? The idea that corporations of any kind are focused on meeting the “needs” of its customers is incorrect. Corporations are focused on meeting the “wants” of its customers.

We have to face reality folks. The problems the auto industry is experiencing are due to the economic crisis all of us are facing…….It’s simple arithmetic ladies and gentlemen. People are losing their jobs by the thousands. And people without jobs do not buy cars. So in reality, blaming the auto industry for needing a hand up is like blaming a laid off worker for needing unemployment benefits.

It’s a recommended read.

——

On to something a bit more fun, eh?

Various Saab forums and websites have threads dedicated to tracking the appearances of Saabs in movies. this site my prove to be a great resource for that.

IMCDb is the automotive version of the Internet Movie Database. I don’t think they’re related, but no matter.

Click on Saab and you get a whole list models and even sub-models (e.g. they break down the 9000 into CS, CSE, etc). I’ve never heard of most of the movies or TV shows, but someone’s done their research as there’s some very obscure stuff in there.

Great pictures, too.

Thanks Golfhunter (via his Flickr a/c)

——

MSN Autos have had three of their writers take the Turbo X for a spin, with mixed reviews:

First:

…..the Saab 9-3 Turbo X SportCombi is a true Saab (not a Subaru) and it’s wonderful. It has a great interior, with one of the best dashboards I can remember…… After just a few hours in the SportCombi, I consider myself a new member of the cult of Saab, in spite of the lower-than-expected fuel economy.

Then:

Once you get moving… the character of this car changes. Torque really comes alive around 2,800 rpm, so keeping the tachometer around three grand provides impressive acceleration……However, with a cramped rear seat and a lofty price tag, there may not be enough performance to win over buyers in the tiny market for sport wagons.

And finally, maddeningly:

Saab does a commendable job of ladling their funkiness over the Opel products that General Motors hands them these days. I’ve owned half a dozen of Trollhattan’s finest, and there are plenty of Saab touchstones in this most enthusiastic of 9-3s.

This sort of thing will never go away, will it?

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Autonet in Canada have had their hands on a 2009 Saab 9-3 Aero XWD, too.

The overall package for the 9-3 is one of conservative good looks with a bit of unique flair inside and out, and a sporty enough demeanour so that daily use remains fun. Detractions from the whole experience are few, and my main niggling complaints are much the same as for similar models in its class.

Not a sizzler of a review, but a decent way to kill a few minutes.

–

I know that recently it’s all been crisis-this and bailout-that around here. I’ve personally reied to make sure I keep things balanced with car stuff, like the wheels post from earlier today, etc, and I know Eggs has done hist part to try and bring us back to our happy place.

That business-related stuff is important as it relates to Saab’s future. But it’s also important to remember why sites like TS exist – because driving is fun, and a Saab is one of the most rewarding vehicles to drive.

Saab sales are way down this year, like with most brands, and whilst I get it on one level, it absolutely perplexes me on another. Why? Because the 2008 Saab 9-3 is the best 9-3 anyone’s been able to buy. That should mean increased interest, but it hasn’t. We could theorise about that all day long, but auto123 in Canada have been driving the car and have some things to say that’ll remind you why you’ve got (or want) a Saab in your driveway.

Our reviewer is a guy named Justin Pritchard and he’s spent some time in a 2008 Saab 9-3 Aero with XWD. The full review is here, but I’ve clipped a few snippets as an entree.

A Canadian testing in the early winter? It’s good to read this, then….

This generates a more planted and stable handling dynamic free of annoying early intervention from stability aids. End result is a sure footed grip on any surface and a delightfully lively and agile feel. It’s very tidy in most any handling situation, and very much an all-season driver’s car.

And contrary to the masses…. me included:

Some don’t see the price-tag in the car’s exterior styling, but the interior of the loaded tester was packed with everything Saab has to offer. Included was automatic everything, power everything, navigation, Bose audio, a sunroof and memory seats. Leather wraps the steering wheel, seats and door panels, and aluminum trim combines with rubberized controls for an exciting yet reserved atmosphere.

And he finishes thus:

There are better ways to look like you spent big bucks on a premium sedan, though 9-3 is tops if you’d rather fly under the radar and not lose your ride in the Longo’s parking lot.

Yes, I’ve only picked out good bits, but that’s because the not-so-good bit only comprise one paragraph and this is an overwhelgmingly positive piece.

The 2008 Saab 9-3 IS a great car. I’m sure the 2009 is even better.

Let’s hope the world gets to hear it.

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