1985-1998 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
Well, I consider myself a pretty good garage mechanic. And luckily, through the help of this BB, I’ve been able to do many repairs on my 9000 without having to take it into the shop. And when my clutch started to act up I thought, okay, let’s replace it. Having checked with several indies here in L.A., including my favorite, I could not get the price below $1200. Ouch! So I decided to piece the parts together off the saabnet suppliers, making sure they were OEM spec. A little luck and a little finagling, I got all the parts(inc. supply hose and main seal) for just under $450. And away I went, jack stands and breaker bar in hand. I estimated 1 day for the total job, barring in mind my mechanic said he can do it in under 4 hours. Of course he’s done it before and I’m throwing myself into a learn-as-you-go mentality. Well, one day into it I realized I may have been over my head.Bolts were not cooperating and mostly were frozen, so much had to be taken off just to get the tranny out, my home made tranny stand wasn’t the best design and had to be re-fabricated. Long story short, 2 days later I finally finished. Skinned knuckles, lost wrenches having flung them across the street in disgust, a broken ABS sensor (yes, I remembered everything else, but to take off that!). In hindsight I may offer the following advice - If you feel you are more than capable, go for it. If you feel you can do it, but are not sure, buy the parts cheaply and find a mechanic to install them. I re-called my indy to belay my disgust at the operation and he said he would have installed my parts for $400 total, still bringing the total cost down to roughly $850. A far cry from the original $1200. I’m sure there are some mechanics that will refuse to install parts that they themselves have not purchased. If there concern is just to make sure they are Saab OEM, I’d by that. But to me it’s to keep their inflated mark up on the parts in tact, hence gouging the consumer. So DIY or take it in? That’s up to the owner, his skill level, and more importantly, his patience. If I had to do it all over again, I most likely would have taken it in. I say that only because I don’t plan on replacing the clutch again on the car. If It was something that needed to be replaced often, having done it myself would indeed help the next time I did it. Motor mounts, for example. They tend to fail often. But the new clutch will hopefully last longer than I own the car. Given that, the level of frustration, the extra tools I had to buy, the passing woman that I had to apologize to as my flying breaker bar went across the street and almost hit her. All that was not worth it. Except for my ego as I did in fact do it myself. Total including tools: $575.00 Still worth it. I think.
Paul R
88 9kt
118k
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
