I have owned more than 10 of them from a 99ems to 90016v turbo...auto's suck of course. I can tell you that I honestly miss all of them. I loved the way the car drove and the sound the engines make....Yeah I'm a tard...They are awesome and they will treat you the way you treat them...

why is this in the diesel section?

i wonder why the screwdriver is stuck into it!!
and we thought mb key switches were interesting

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1984 300D Turbo - 231k....totalled 11/30/07 RIP

I owned four saabs, 2 99's and 2 900's. Swapped the slushbox out of one of the 900's for a stick just for fun, hated auto's back then.

I never put snow tires on any of them, and never got stuck in New England weather. I drove lots of highway miles and used to have fun weaving past the tow truck conga lines in 3-4" of snow. The cars made you overconfident. I used to park my cars half on snowbanks, only rarely shoveled out a parking space.

I now have 3 benzes and a nissan sentra, and still don't put snows on the sentra and it won't skip a beat in snow. Sorry, the idea that a rear wheel drive is better in snow is ridiculous. Being able to shift the angle on your turning wheel means you really can't dig a rut, can't really loose traction. I HAVE to have snows on my MB's.

That all said, you had to drive it different in the snow in corners, you could break the front loose if you weren't careful. You could as easily throttle your way though corners to regain your line. Once you got used to the different steering feel, they were lots of fun to drive, great on dry pavement, great in the snow, 4-cyls and good on gas. A 900 carried a washer and dryer for me once, tons of room. Still thinking about finding a 9000, always liked that look. One of the earliest cars you could get in safety orange!

Parts were expensive, the cars were not easy to work on (water pumps come to mind). It also had a distributor pin ($.50) that broke on me twice, stranding me. Valve springs let go once. The clutch was in the front of the engine, so you could change a clutch in half an hour once you knew what you were doing, standing up, without moving or jacking the trans. A brilliant innovation, in my mind.

I gave up the Saabs when my last one took a pilot-less trip down a hill (forgot to set the handbrake, thought it was in gear) and wrapped itself around a tree. The cop told me I would be resonsible for damages to the tree.

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Peter
1985 300TD 4-speed 212K
1992 400E 343K
2001 E320 72K

yep,

i lost the dist pin too.

yes in a parking space thing the front drive is excellent. i once pulled an olds 88 out of the sand in the interstate median with my 99.... in reverse. he was buried up to the axle in back.

but on the highway i prefer the rwd. you never lose the steering.

i slid off the outside of a curve once in my saab, on icey conditions. it just understeered all the way into the bank on the opposite side of the road!

i did enjoy the two i had though.

tom w

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

My family owned lots of Saabs.

1980 900 GLi thru 1995 900SE ragtop, with several 900s and 9000s in between.

As a concept the 9000 is great. Huge interior, great seats, huge trunk. In execution, it is awful. Why is the clutch slave cyl inside the bellhousing, necessitating 100% of the labor for a clutch job to fix a hyd leak? Paid $1200 to get that fixed when I lived in an apt and didn't have facilities to fix.

Real Saabs (pre '95 900, any 9000/99/96/Sonett etc.) are entertaining but if you own a 126 you are already ahead of the game- can't think of anything Saab built which measures up to one, or is even close. It's just a different league!

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1985 300TD
1984 380SL
1983 280SE (full Euro, trunk triangle and all!)

Formerly owned:
1986 420SEL
1984 300D
1983 300D
1981 300SD
1976 300D

aftermarket about $200. parts are not as expensive as most people think for BMW