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Is it my bad luck or is it a normal thing for a 5-year-old Saab 900 SE V6 to need that much repairs? Here is my story since I bought this car in Sep. 1999. It was a lease-end vehicle and bought it from the owner. I did the standard check-at-the-dealer thing with the car and everything was fine.
The car is 1996, 900SE, V6. ~96k km (~60k miles)
The prices, where indicated are in Canadian $. Divide them by approx. 1.6 to get US$. All services at Saab dealer.
Then, here is my history of repairs over the past 21 months:
- Spark plug wires replaced at 56k scheduled maintenance due to misfires that triggered the "Check Engine" light. (under warranty)
- Passenger seat electric controls would not work. Wiring problems (warranty)
- Exhaust middle pipe with catalytic converter needed to be changed (~$250)
- Oxygen sensor needed to be replaced (Parts:$800+Labor:~$200)
- Alternator died on a snowy winter day. (Alternator+battery+labor: $1,100)
- Muffler has a hole in it (est. $350)
- AC needed to recharged due to some leakage yet to be found (forgot the amount but >$200)
- I am taking the car to the dealer tomorrow for a series of problems:
a) AC needs to be recharged, again this year!
b) The engine misfires again, this time warranty expired. The wires are $800. 3 hour labor extra!
c) Central lock started to misbehave. Everything works fine except for the remote does not pop up the locks but disarms the alarm. The lights blink, horn sounds once but the locks don't pop up. Have to unlock with key. Don't know what the problem is.
d) "TCS Off" indicator coming on & off intermittently. Don't know why.
Anyway, the list is longer but I don't remember every single time I took the car to the dealer for service and probably you don't care either. The issue is that a 5 year-old car should not produce this many problems. Over the period I owned the car, I have spent about $7k for repairs and scheduled maintenance, not including what I will pay for the last list if items above. And, out of the 21 months I owned the car, 5 months were under warranty.
Do you think this is normal?
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