1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
glad you enjoyed it, it is the truth.
the dealership, e.g., told me the other day that if they open things up to do the slave (i called for comparison quote to make myself feel better about the saabmech), they're going to find lots of worn parts on a car as old as mine that should be replaced now while everything is apart. honest, at least, and hence they couldn't give me a firm estimate.
this can turn into a saab story (pun intended) for us as owners, but I remind myself that I paid $2K for a great car that came from a previous owner who had been through the same situation, hence, the car came with a lot of new parts.
this is why I love saabs...
they are the best all around fun, luxurious, stylish (until recently perhaps), well-handling, good MPG, refrigerator toting cars I've found...
and the bonus...
we can buy a 10 year old well-maintained, sometimes dealer maintained, 9000 from a nice saab owner for $2000 and get a stack of thousands of dollars of new parts/repair receipts. we can literally shop around and pick the troubles we want to avoid in the next couple years (timing belt, AC, clutch, alternator, etc.) just as we pick colors.
and then, invest $500-$1000 a year for a few years, or less if lucky, and still have a car that's worth what we originally paid for it ($2K).
the $1000 a year is a fraction of the yearly depreciation/higher insurance cost on a new car.
that's what makes me feel good about saab ownership, but my lament is getting to the point where I could spend more in one year, or one month, than I could for a 'new' used saab that might come with all the recent repairs I'm afraid I might need.
then the trade-off comes, sell my beloved saab for parts, keep it for parts for my '90 9000, or sell to someone who would like to spend $1000 on a great car and invest $1K-$2K right away, and then I can buy another one with a host of new parts for $2K or $3K and begin the next love affair..
or just keep spending money on repairs until everything is straightened out.
i think it evens out both ways, so the question is, which would be more fun??
in the meantime, the car is still shifting ok, my wife doesn't notice a difference in the clutch (I know there's a difference), but that's good because she feels good about driving it, and I can live without paying attention to the digital display while I should be focusing on the road.
it really is a good car, i recently changed the plugs, i don't know how old they were, but there was hardly anything left to them, there was barely enough metal to measure a gap, and the car was getting 34 mpg highway/20 mpg town.
cross my fingers the slave works for awhile...
haven't found a flashlight with working batteries yet to check the display...
and i'm ignoring what sounds like a noisy strut mount.
thanks again for help.
aaron
posted by 4.234.13...
, Mon, 19 Jul 2004 08:12:08
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