Why is this newsgroup all technical troubleshooting?

Because any help is gratefully received ? Also - who better to ask than another Saab owner ?

events, and so forth? :)

There's been plenty of recent discussion regarding the future for Saab and its product development, GM's derisive treatment of its Swedish subsidiary etc. Just look.

I look forward to that. Do you have a download site ? You know you can't post them here though. This isn't a *binaries* group.

Graham

even though some think that Saab is missing just "1 final nail" in the coffin. I will fight that negatitity in the face of the recent GM news and humor myself and others by being wishful and hopeful in whatever comes out at the end.

to dwell on negativity because Saab is where it is now, and that's that.

There's a 96 that keeps turning up here in 'my' road. Maybe putting out that dish of oil did the trick ? ;-)

You'll have more fans btw if you learn the accepted practice of 'bottom posting' that preserves that thread ( the opposite of typical practice for email ) and configure your weird newsreader I never heard of - Sylpheed version 0.9.8a -

Your posts disappear off the right hand side of my 21" screen and I have to scroll right to see what you wrote !

Graham

SAAB's are sort of like stray cats that way, works every time.

.. :) ..

Graham,

I don't know what to say, I am running 1200 x 1600 resolution, perhap's that is it?

Saab Guy

direction, even though some think that Saab is missing just "1 final nail" in the coffin. I will fight that negatitity in the face of the recent GM news and humor myself and others by being wishful and hopeful in whatever comes out at the end.

like to dwell on negativity because Saab is where it is now, and that's that.

dish of oil did the trick ? ;-)

posting' that preserves that thread ( the opposite of typical practice for email ) and configure your weird newsreader I never heard of - Sylpheed version 0.9.8a

- *what* is that ? - so that it wraps lines before you reach about 120

scroll right to see what you wrote !

No, it's that neither you or your newsreader are inserting a newline at page width.

In Netscape 4.8 which I still prefer for text newsgroups - the setting is for example to be found under Preferences, Messages, Message Wrapping...

Wrap outgoing plain text messages at ( 72 ) characters.

And he's still top-posting !

Graham

direction, even though some think that Saab is missing just "1 final nail" in the coffin. I will fight that negatitity in the face of the recent GM news and humor myself and others by being wishful and hopeful in whatever comes out at the end.

like to dwell on negativity because Saab is where it is now, and that's that.

Are *many* cars that unique to drive any more outside of the supercar league ? Aside from losing the rear end on RWD cars of course.

Graham

Hopefully this will not be linesize 400. Just my opinion, from owning Volvos since 1982 and driving my father's P1800s starting in 1970. The newer Volvos suffer from similar problems. They are designed to make a profit first. The older Volvos earned the reputation for safety. The newer ones meet the 5 star crash rating only if you have all of the optional airbags. The newer ones also cost much more to maintain. Two examples: the power window switches have become one unit so if one switch fails you replace the whole unit, if you catch a rock in the headlight of an S80, if will cost at least $600 to replace because you need to take the bumper off. In the older 240 series you could replace just the switch for the power windows or clean it for free. I can replace the headlight in my 245 for $10 in 5 minutes - moving slowly. Replace two headlights on an S80 and you could replace the turbocharger in a 240 for the same price.

Crap and a half - I was hoping for better from Volvo.

Well - I guess my position that it is really cheaper in the long haul to simply keep fixing up an older model isn't so zany after all.

I checked preferences and it is set to 72 characters, hmm.

Dexter,

I know, for years my friends and neighbors thought I was simply ridiculous spending all sorts of money in maintaining my Saab. They were all about "buy a new one and rid yourself of the hassle and costs, etc.." I was telling them, they were crazy and being taken by the company's marketing..Then again it's good to do both because without new car sales, then the company won't be in business if everyone out there hung onto their Saab 99. If that was the case, then Saab would basically be a parts-only business and the model 99 for instance, would be the last car they ever made, now that would be bad.

Saab Guy

Hah! We are just talking about that over at my local .general group - very interesting.

"Really, everyone gets boned by the lowest competitive bid economy if you rely upon it exclusively."

.. is about where we are at in the thread..

I guess my counter is that if the engineering cost management group cannot arrange a cost formula to provide for a 10 cent loom connector instead of a 5 cent one in manufacture as regards my earlier post about our 1993 Aero (a list $35,000 car) - then I have to take some responsibility for the Automobile in question and uprate the design in the field.

Given that I have to uprate in the field to maximize my ROI as regards choosing their Brand over another - cost driven by their retail parts lists - the decision in the cost management group limits my real ability to expend future resources on newer models.

That was my point early regarding SAAB's approach regarding incremental engineering improvements through the 70's and 80's.

You would drive in with a car that usually hadn't expensive failed during its financing term with you - often into the 200,000km range. There was a demonstratively better model of much the same thing on the floor - which you could usually drive happily away at a similar monthly payment.

Now that is not to say that there weren't some real lemons and bad service out there - but the above outlined experience was more often the case than not. They were building the Brand value at a lower rate of return to the investors - but in trade - they were able to reliably predict investor earnings over time.

Then - and I think we all really share some blame here on a lot of economic fronts here - consumers everywhere started to chase the lowest competitive bid, using Branding to limit the obvious risk exposure inherent in the buying pattern. While at the same time, effectively voting with our collective Retirement and Mutual funds as regards earnings expectations which, finally, limited public capital available to enterprises engaging in lower return engineering in trade for reliable earning predictably by the early 90's.

Effectively - that was really when the great 'takeover' barons decided to harvest the lower 40.

And, in my opinion at least, why my Ritz cracker sux and my otherwise really very well built 1993 Aero - has a surprisingly under-engineered 5 cent connector when, clearly, it needed a 10 cent one.

Like I said - I get chastised for this sort of thing every so often.. Sorry..

If you like 9000s - buy a nice example now and treasure it. Not too expensive to fix esp with salvage parts and will run for a long long time.

They are *so* cheap to buy in the Uk, it's painful.

Graham

Now, if only the executives had figured out the answer to this question: "Where did the value of the Saab name come from?", they would have become enlightened.

br:s

That too - I figured one thing at a time. Hope it's worth the effort.

OK, let's talk about top-posting also. You wrote something, then Graham answered, then I added something, and then you put your response to all of that _before_ the rest of the conversation. Screws up the flow of the discussion to suddenly start going upside-down about it.

Dave,

Okay, that is a good think to look out for when posting.

Dave,

I'm not familiar with "plonk"