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While it's a comforting to believe that the Viggen's "extra power has been well compensated for", this is simply not the case in my experience. Having been through a clutch, transmission, ACC, battery, and every possible wear item before 45,000 miles, I find the reliability factor to be an absolute joke (I bought a 1999). Sure, it was a fun idea to put this much power into a FWD car, but it was done so in the first year of a model rollout; a dangerous time to make experiments in reliability and consistency from a consumer's perspective.
And let's not talk about this transmission that hasn't gotten any better. It's completely pathetic and inexcusable for a sports car of this nature to have such a rotten shift. Sometimes I ask myself who would feel, after $40,000, that they got a good deal on a Viggen.
Just look at the Viggen Rescue Kit for example. It's fun for us to get a Viggen and say "don't forget to buy the VRK", but in truth, that kit should be *standard equipment". Most people buy the kit because the car is simply underengineered without it. GM was so eager to get Saab into the premium sports car market that it completely ignored the trials and tribulations of the Toyota Supra, The Mazda RX-7, and the Mitsubishi 3000GT. All of these cars are extinct now because they are remnants of an era of impracticality. They were fun cars, but when driven to their potential, they were too expensive to maintain, from a consumer and dealer perspective, because they had nothing in particular to compensate for their high performance; no heavy-duty drivetrains, no completely unique suspension systems. I think of the 3000GT in particular. The AWD system and twin turbos of the VR4 were so totally cool, but were so incredibly flaky and high maintenance that it became impossible to justify financially.
Look at the Viggen clutch. I have my old one in my back closet. There is absolutely nothing "heavy duty" about it, despite manufacturer claims. In fact, I've had two dealers concur with the fact that marketing the Viggen clutch as "heavy duty" is more or less a misnomer. When I think heavy duty, I think about the clutch you pull out of a dump truck. My overall impression is that GM went ahead and changed some parts for the Viggen "just enough", but did nothing to make things as solid as they could have been.
If you build a race car, people are going to expect a race car. The Viggen was presented as a high-performance machine, not a glorified grocery-getter. It's unfortunate that spotty reliability has left the latter as the case of record. The Viggen could have been really great, but it's just not.
posted by 24.61....
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