Faults:

Rear brake line rusted and burst (112,600 miles). Replaced myself for about $17.

Clutch Slave Cylinder went out (114,800 miles). VERY DIFFICULT to replace, it took me about 35 hours because you must remove the disk prior to removing the slave, and removing the diss requires depressing the pressure plate WITH THE SLAVE CYLINDER WHICH WAS broken. I ended up depressing each finger on the pressure plate by hand and using 3/8" long pieces of 1/4" round stock wedged between the plate housing and fingers. Parts were cheap though, about $160 for a new disk, slave and pilot.

Fuel "straw" that sucks from the bottom of the tank to the pump developed a hole, and will suck air at about 1/3 tank and cause the car to quit running. I just fill up around 1/2 tank now, which is a shame because I used to get about 400 miles/tank.

General Comments:

I love the unique look of the car. Not many autos have such raw design appeal.

My Saab is a 4 door sedan with a trunk. I added an SPG front air dam and trunk lid spoiler which made it look slightly sportier.

The best way to drive a Saab is to never be a hurry to get where you're going. It drives best when eased along at an almost sleepy pace.

Faults:

For a 16 year old car, remarkably little - and mostly relatively minor.

Rear shock absorber detached, and rear suspension needed about £700 of work to rebuild, including some welding. This may have been due to rust.

Needed some welding around front suspension area to pass MOT.

Required fix of ground fault in rear lights.

Required carb adjustment to pass MOT emissions test.

Required new distributor cap (replaced rotor arm too) to try and make engine run smoother from cold - burned electrodes. This helped, but the carb was probably needing cleaned out - although I never actually got the time to overhaul this before I have the car away. It ran very rough on cold days, sometimes on only 2 or 3 cylinders if I let it idle with the choke out, but was just fine after warming up for 5 minutes, or if I kept the mixure lean, and foot on the accelerator at idle. It wouldn't go above about 65 mph probably because of this carb problem.

Heated seats stopped working, although not really worth fixing.

Rear demister decayed (expected with age)

General Comments:

A very solid, comfortable, and pleasant to drive car. Nice soft suspension that gave a comfortable ride on the often poor UK roads. For a 16 year old vehicle, amazingly all instruments, the original Phillips radio (after a little rewiring), and the heater all still worked perfectly. Lots of boot space, but had a silly spacesaver spare wheel.

This vehicle was very uneconomic. The 1985cc carburettor petrol engine was quite thirsty, as one would expect for a relatively unsophisticated petrol engine that was being started from cold, and run for short journeys of 10 miles or so, while hauling nearly 1.7 tonnes of steel.

Faults:

The air-conditioner stopped working for a few days and just before I brought it to be repaired, it started to work.

General Comments:

I love this car with all my heart. I am a meteorologist who works and studies at the Mount Washington observatory in northern New Hampshire. I live in Whitefield which is about 25 minutes from the base of the mountain. Every day rain or shine My 1986 saab hatch and I climb all 6,280 feet of very steep winding road to the top. The car has been doing this weather permitting (blizzards) every day. I have never once worried that the almost 400,000 miles would slow it down. To climb the mountain I select third gear which enables the car to climb at about 35 mph at 2500-3000 RPM depending upon grade. (10-20) degrees. Many cars are not able to climb the mountain. The other day I saw a Porsche 911 pulled over with an overheated engine.