"normal" repairs?

For a vehicle less than 4 years old, that's an awful lot of money to be paying for something which is basically only just 'run in'.

I own a couple of early 80's Saab C900's and if I was going to spend $2000 (even if was US$2000, not A$2000), I'd be getting massive value for money.

My most expensive repair to date was when the old starter motor developed a broken armature winding and short-circuited the entire starting circuit back to the auxilliary relay. That cost me almost $1500 but most of that was the labor cost, not the parts cost.

Replacing all the fried wiring took the longest (well over a whole day of shop time), and I had to get their auto-electrician to come to my place a few weeks later after one of the replaced wires came loose again, which ended up being a shoddy install job. 8-)

If I'd just bought a Saab in 2001, I would not be happy about having to spend $2k so soon on what sounds like fairly trivial tasks.

The worst part of it all with newer cars (not just Saab's) is that with all the electronic controls, you can't do much yourself without access to the fancy computer diagnostic tools to work out what the on-board computer management thinks is wrong first. 8-)

GM forces dealers, repairers, etc. to pay huge amounts of money for diagnostic info for all the on-board processing modules so I'm guessing that your mechanic is trying to pass on the high costs involved with having all the right service tools available but I still think you're being massively overcharged unless something really major has needed work since the car isn't far out of it's warranty, at least I'm assuming it isn't anyway.

Regards,

Craig.

PS. Interesting to see in a local paper yesterday that GM has been rated the worst of all the top-6 global vehicle makers for reducing pollution. The article notes that GM's very poor performance is because of higher demand for it's trucks (ie. F-series, etc. which are appearing here too - sign), and larger vehicles seem to have a lot less effort put into pollution control design than smaller vehicles.

Next time get a second opinion - preferably at an independent mechanic

- before letting anyone do that much work on the car.

The serp belt should be changed about every 50K miles. However, it's a $35 part and a half hour of labor. As to the "induction service" ? I've never heard of that service. A "tune up" ? About the only thing that can be changed would be the spark plugs and air filter. There is typically nothing to adjust. It is possible that you need something cleaned or some engine controls replaced but they should be listed as such.

Personally, I think the dealer took you for a bundle of services that were not really anything substantial. But, it's hard to say that definitively unless we know more of what they did and why.

Thank you for a detailed response. It seems that car repair is not as expensive downunder. If I had known that this SAAB would need so much repair and what it will end up costing me I wouldn't have bought this car in the first place. From what you said I suspect that repair and maintenance costs on a new SAAB might be just as high. For these reasons I'm seriously considering getting rid of it.