New Saab 9-3 Aero Convertible - advice please.

I have had my espresso black Aero sport saloon for a month now and it does look great (i think the best colour) when clean but very dull and ugly when dirty which lets face it is a day after i've cleaned here in scotland. So if you are lazy when it comes to cleaning your car then go with another colour.

RM

Cheers for the reply.. I've seen an expresso black convertible quite recently on the road between Dumbarton and Balloch (wonder how many of them there are in Scotland?) and it did look nice in the sun.. I popped down to Western Saab in Glasgow to have a look at the cars in the lot and there was a nice non-metallic black right at the showroom entrance but then the missus spotted one of the Lime Yellow ones and said she liked that.. not sure myself, always regarded it as a chick's colour but then again, I notice a row of black 9-5s which were all spattered with everything under the sun, dead insects, bird cack and general road muck.. I can imagine I'd spend half my life washing the damn thing in black.. still deliberating.

-- TP

Very refined as convertibles go. Well insulated for cold weather. I drive mine year round and it's no different than a hardtop in terms of comfort. It is a little noisier on the highway when trucks go by. Other than that, not much difference.

Black cars are very, very hard to keep up. I'm a guy who likes to detail cars and I'm fairly good at it... my black car is significantly more work than any car I've ever owned and never really looks good unless I've just finish detailing it. After that, it goes downhill fast. I'd never buy another black car.

Gray is about the best color for hiding defects and dirt. Of course, it's not as "exciting".

MHO, yes. I don't put adults in the year of my 'vert. I consider it a

You should never take any car through a car wash. The soaps they use strip the wax off your car as they are very caustic. Brushes scratch your car, the so called "brushless" or "cloth" drag wet strips with sand imbedded in them across your finish. The result is a lot of surface scratches, "spiderwebbing", etc. Very, very bad for dark cars, not too god for light ones either.

A convertible definitely should not go through a car wash. In addition, you should not even wash the top with soap unless it is absolutely necessary. Just a water rinse. You want to avoid removing the water repellency. You will also need to treat the top once or twice a year. Takes a couple hours and restores any lost repellency.

Here is a point where I agree. My saab has never seen a car wash since I bought it in 1997.

However... I see lot of convertibles every day. There are mercedes, some even AMG. Audi A4 convertible is popular, more so than Audi TT convertible. Natuarlly, I see BMWs and the new Saab convertibles. Convertibles are popular around here. What do the all have in common? Most of the time the roof is up. It's now June and the weather is excellent?

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 17:28:46 +0100, Johannes H Andersen excellent?

I hear that. They don't really understand the purpose. By the time they think it's warm enough to put the top down, it's so hot they put it back up and turn on the A/C.

I get mine down when the temp reaches the mid to upper 60's, depending on the sun factor. I end up using the heater a lot but I love the top down feel. The absolute best time is in the late afternoon on a hot summer day when the sun is low but the temp is still 80 degrees.

A warm night, a warm turbo, a warm girl beside me... life couldn't be finer.

There is an opposite coin to that. I do sometime occasionally pass open convertibles on the motorway. When you pass them, you can see absolutely everything in the car. My car is a 9000 of course, but then think if I had a high 4x4 say, then there wouldn't be any privacy in your convertible wouldn't there?

Probably just envious...

On Sat, 05 Jun 2004 23:14:28 +0100, Johannes H Andersen privacy in your convertible wouldn't there?

Well, there isn't much to see in my car... if the truck drivers want to look at my legs, they can. If they want to look at my girl's legs, that just builds up my ego.

Having the roof down does make it easier to start conversations with people on the street or in other cars. It seems to put you in the same space, rather than in a hardtop car where you are in a "different" space.

That could possibly cause an accident due to the distraction.

Then I'm puzzled to see things like Mercedes CL 55 AMG convertibles; Imagine going 155+ mph with the roof down - it will probably blow off!

On Sun, 06 Jun 2004 13:27:27 +0100, Johannes H Andersen

Naw, my legs ain't that attractive :-)