Hi, I'm Botch, and I'm a Saaboholic. :rockon: I've been driving them since 1985.
A couple weeks ago the "Time for Service" light came on on my 2001 Saab 9-3 Convertible. I made an appointment to take her in this morning, and a couple days later the "Check Engine" light came on too, so I parked it until this morning. Raining like a bandit this morning, the 25-minute drive to Salt Lake City took almost an hour. The "Check Engine" light never came on.
After about an hour the tech came to the waiting room and told me the computer had recorded the light coming on, and that my Direct Ignition module was about to go belly-up. They had one in stock, and it'd be about $600 part/labor to replace it; I told them to go ahead.
When they printed out the paperwork, look what printed out!
Saab went bankrupt last year. GM sold them to a European manufacturer, they lost more money, and last January the European party tried to sell Saab to a small Chinese manufacturer, but I learned this morning that GM was somehow able to block that sale to protect the technology rights they got when they bought Saab, and didn't want to affect their (GM's) market in China, and let them be liquidated (for you GM: :Flip
Anyway, the dealership told me once the bankruptcy proceedings were finished someone would buy up the Parts section of the company, but until that happens, parts will only become more and more hard to come by. I'll keep her for now; if it were my only transportation I think I'd have to sell it while I could rather than driving it til I couldn't. The waiting room is adjacent to the Parts Counter, and during the 2.5 hours I was waiting there the Parts guy placed about three orders for parts they didn't have, and he had to scan the other dealerships for availability. A sad situation for me...
A couple weeks ago the "Time for Service" light came on on my 2001 Saab 9-3 Convertible. I made an appointment to take her in this morning, and a couple days later the "Check Engine" light came on too, so I parked it until this morning. Raining like a bandit this morning, the 25-minute drive to Salt Lake City took almost an hour. The "Check Engine" light never came on.
After about an hour the tech came to the waiting room and told me the computer had recorded the light coming on, and that my Direct Ignition module was about to go belly-up. They had one in stock, and it'd be about $600 part/labor to replace it; I told them to go ahead.
When they printed out the paperwork, look what printed out!
Saab went bankrupt last year. GM sold them to a European manufacturer, they lost more money, and last January the European party tried to sell Saab to a small Chinese manufacturer, but I learned this morning that GM was somehow able to block that sale to protect the technology rights they got when they bought Saab, and didn't want to affect their (GM's) market in China, and let them be liquidated (for you GM: :Flip
Anyway, the dealership told me once the bankruptcy proceedings were finished someone would buy up the Parts section of the company, but until that happens, parts will only become more and more hard to come by. I'll keep her for now; if it were my only transportation I think I'd have to sell it while I could rather than driving it til I couldn't. The waiting room is adjacent to the Parts Counter, and during the 2.5 hours I was waiting there the Parts guy placed about three orders for parts they didn't have, and he had to scan the other dealerships for availability. A sad situation for me...
