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1999-2009 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
I'm not sure I'm following this. I do know that Saab dealers - at least in some cases - are unwilling to sell winter tire/steel wheel packages outside of the "official" packages that Saab features each Fall. F'rinstance, I bought a CPO Aero '01 this February from a dealer in a suburb of Buffalo, NY (it was a Maryland car, actually...) The dealer would only sell me the "official" Saab winter wheel/tire set, which would have been Saab steel wheels (16") and a set of Goodyear - I forget the model - snow tires.
I prefer the Nokia Hakkapelitta snows. I actually had to wait for a patch of non-snowy weather before I could go get the car, as it had a set of new (less than 300 miles) Dunlop SP A2's on 17" BBS rims - a really unsafe combination for snow and ice, IMHO. I drove the car directly to my local Saab dealer who was more than happy to sell me a set of Hakkas mounted on "generic" 16" steel wheels, which coincidentally look pretty much exactly like the "official" Saab steels.
Liability? All I can tell you is that the entire fleet of Saab loaners at the local Saab dealer is fitted with steel wheels and snow tires for the winter driving months. I happened to ask the service manager once why they did this and his answer was along the lines of "liability," meaning that without the snow tires, the 9-5's weren't all that stable with all-season tires, when being driven in extreme winter weather conditions.
Anyway, it's almost halfway through April, so maybe I can start thinking about taking off the Hakkas!
I'm just guessing here, but maybe given the inherent ugliness of most steel wheels, they figured you were buying them for winter driving, and that if you combined ANY wheel with all-season tires on a 9-5, their experience had taught them that it really wasn't all htat safe.
posted by 64.24.179...
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