Gearbox failed (differential) £570 for a reconditioned box.
Rear crankshaft oil seal failed and destroyed clutch Gearbox out again! Very Expensive!!
Air conditioning radiator failed, left it not working as not essential.
Various oil leaks.
Water pump failed, d.i.y repair still £78 for a genuine Saab pump.
The last straw!! Clutch master cylinder failed, did not inquire on price of repair, disposed of car!!
Please read and understand this review, never believe anyone that says Saab's are very reliable cars, because in my experience, they are not. Even minor repairs are very expensive if the work is carried out by Saab.
My car was not an abused hack it had plenty of Saab history and appeared to be in good condition, but after the first failure I should have realized that the cost of keeping an older Saab running is like throwing money down the drain. I hung on to the fallacy that the car would repay me with at least 50000 miles of motoring, How wrong I was!!
It was comfortable and it had a large boot, they are the only positive things I can say.
Running costs are astronomical.
In the end I had to throw it away, it was so bad.
I have a 1990 Saab 9000 with 204,000 miles. First off, I would tend to disagree with your labeling Saab as unreliable. You experience is based upon just that, one experience. Don't call the rest of us Saab owners dishonest, my car is reliable and I'm not telling a tall tale in any respect. I have had to replace my clutch slave cylinder, which at the same time I did my clutch along with some seals. It sounds like you simply got a car that hadnt been taken care of. Trust me, I've seen saabs in awesome cosmetic shape that had not been taken care of at all and that had tons of mechanical problems as a result (as any other car would). My 9000s is a non-turbo and gets to 60 in 9 seconds, that's not too shabby for a 2.0L car with no turbo. It also competes with the 5-series of these years in handling. Anyways, I just want your possibly emotional comments to have a very negative impact, I and many others tend to think that what you say is untrue of most saabs.
Perhaps you are being a little harsh, but I can't say I entirely disagree with you... I have a 9000 with very low mileage (about 50k miles when I bought it), and it has had problems galore. Parts are hard to find and expensive, servicing is spotty, and it seems like something is always breaking on my car. Right now, I'm wondering what's going to break next!
Are Saabs reliable? Well, they're built of fairly high quality components, but the engineering seems to be well... odd... The electrical systems are the most failure-prone, as according to various consumer organizations. Mechanically, these cars are pretty decent (except for the transmissions), which puts their overall reliability somewhat above a North American car, but far below that of the Japanese.
If you want a Saab, for the love of God, make sure everything on it works perfectly! Otherwise, you'll be spending a lot of time and money getting it fixed.
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