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I am sending this again as the first post disappeared or was deleted for some reason...
Running fine then BLAMMO! A long walk home in the rain. My 2000 9-3 SE gave up to the sludge plague 3 weeks ago at 72k. I just thought I would let you know what hurdles I am going through to get some assistance from Saab. The local dealer diagnosed the cause as engine sludge and gave me an estimate of $7,200.00 to replace the engine.
I contacted Saab Customer Service who said they would not honor any extended warranties for this issue for two reasons - 1)I bought the car used and even though I had evidence that the oil was changed routinely by a Saab dealer, the oil was changed at Saab's "recommeded intervals" and not the "extreme use intervals" by the original owner who leased the car... 2) Since I have owned the car (44k), I have not had any of my oil changes done by a Saab dealer, I change my own oil every 5k with Mobil 1 0w-40 and Saab filters, even though I had all the receipts.
Guess the next course of action is small claim's court. The dealer has two other 9-3's in their shop with the same problem with no resolution either, one of which is owned by an original owner (a 2002 9-3 SE vert).
My argument will be that if Saab intended oil to be changed at the extreme use interval regardless of use it should have stated so in the owners manual. The memorandum Saab sent out did not require every oil change to be done by Saab dealers.
Meanwhile I am driving my old, sludge free 1994 900 SE with 154k on the clock (I know this because last year i changed out the VC gaskets in both cars. I am not paying $7,200 for an engine, and a used motor of same vintage will still have the same sludge issues, I wish there was a way to take a tax write off for this disaster, but I will have to junk the car.
Why my 2000 model has so much sludge at less than half the mileage and the 94 model is nice and clean one could speculate fault with the bogus crankcase ventilation system on the 2000 model. This is the one that Saab has issued at least three fixes for and still cant get it right. I was tempted to change it over to the system used on my 94 model, maybe if I would have done this I could have saved the motor.
posted by 24.236.8...
, Tue, 20 Sep 2005 13:01:05
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