re: cupholders

Just my personal preference, but I like to keep two hands on the steering wheel while driving except when shifting gears. So, I have no need for a cup holder in my Saabs. When I drive, I drive - when I drink I drink :-) and the two don't mix, even it it is just water. Also - I don't use my cell phone. I let voice mail take the calls.

I'm the opposite. I live out of my Saab. Heavy commuting and lots of daily long distance driving requires that I have a meal while driving sometimes. I draw the line at reading the paper though. ~GJ~

I am too busy enjoying the drive ;-) to consider a drink. If you know what I mean :-D

I remember before I bought my 9K I was looking at a Honda with a similar engine performace (in theory anyway). The salesman made three mistakes.

a. Showed me the drinks holder and how good it was ( what would I do with it? I wanted to go vroom vroom.)

b. praised the car for being made in the US (sorry yanks ... if I wanted a honda I wanted the real version made in Japan ... like the Subaru thing we have with the 9-2)

c. I said the car made a constant noise in the back as it if it had a faulty bearing. He said they would check it if I was going to buy it.

I took great pleasure when I saw his face as I went passed in my then 18 month old 9K (the honda garage is walking distance from where I live).

Drinks holders are banned in my cars. They will only be permitted when I age even more and buy something subdued and respectable. In any case the drinks bottles/cans meet with my elbow when I change gears (manual g/box).

:-)

Feeling better now for contributing something totally irrelevant.

Charles

I use a cupholder to enable me to keep both hands on the wheel as I bring a drink back to work safely in a cupholder. No drinking is done while driving. That is only done before or after the auto trip. How would I do that if I didn't have a cupholder? Buying overpriced drinks I don't care for from the company vending machine is not a good alternative. I also carry my mobile phone with me in the car. I don't use that while driving either. Some people install a special holder in their cars for their phones.

...just another opinion and point of view.

Walt Kienzle

That's fine, if you don't have a 2 hour per day commute on a good day. I don't have cupholders either (my 9-5 had one in the center console but I needed that room for CDs), but I can certainly say I've taken coffee along in the morning to drink on the way.

I just remembered there's that cool flippy cupholder in the dash of my

Exactly why I need a cup holder. Thanks!

-- Christian

Save Darfur --

Just a general warning to those keeping cell phones and other objects in cup holders, as well as sitting on the seat. If you have the bad luck of being in an accident, loose objects (cell phone in cupholder)have killed the otherwise safely restrainted (by seatbelt/airbag) occupants. Keep loose objects to a minimum. Put the brief cases and laptops in the trunk. Keep the cell phone in the belt clip or brief case. However, a paper cup of coffee flying around the inside of a car in an accident would probably cause only minimal bodily harm. A full metal coffee travel tumbler would really hurt.

Walt Kienzle wrote:

Remember what Bilbo used to say: "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. ~GJ~

It's nice to have a cool drink when it's a hot day, and having a cupholder certainly beats trying to hold it between your legs while driving from a safety standpoint. Trying to juggle a drink while changing lanes in rush hour traffic or going around curvey rural roads would be dumb, but cruising wide open on the freeway or sitting at a standstill in a traffic jam it's not much of a distraction.

Very true. A friend of mine from California and I were talking about the different names we have in the US for a motorway. Were I am, they are called expressways or tollways. In California, they are called freeways because, as my friend explained, that is the only place where you can park free of charge (during rush hours ;-).

"James Sweet" wrote in news:FJx8e.16569$jd6.7458@trnddc07:

I don't eat or drink when I'm driving in city traffic or on twisty roads, but I do need a place to stick a drink if I bring home takeout. If I'm driving long distances on an interstate -- 800 miles cruising at 70+ and only stopping for gas -- I always have a bottle of water with me and something to snack on to break the monotony. Once you get out of the cities, there's not much traffic and few exits/entrances. I've been on Interstates in the Midwest that are so flat and straight you can see a squirrel crossing the road 20 miles ahead. I think US drivers are a lot more fastfood oriented and accustomed to going long distances on Interstates than the Swedish are.

I think keeping a briefcase in the back of my 900 would be pretty dangerous in a wreck as it might fly forward into the back of head. I would opt to put it in the front passenger seat (if I am alone) and even seatbelt it in for added safety.

-- Christian

Save Darfur --

Just watch out for the air bag when you have a tray with four cups of coffee on your lap. I know a guy that had the cups disintegrate when his wife crashed and the airbags deployed. Guess where the coffee ended up.

Drinks in cups are not allowed in my car. (My rules!) Drinking from a small cola bottle is allowed. Yes, smoking and animals are also on my banned list. You sometimes get blind passengers as I discovered when a frog came out of the front grille.

He did sue, right? I mean, it obviously wasn't his fault!! Who in the world would ever have envisioned spilling hot coffee on their johnson when driving around with 4 cups of coffee in their lap?

You guys are hilarious...

I drink coffee in my cars from a cup made for commuters. It has a tight fitting lid with a small opening to sip from. It fits snuggly in the cup holder and it never spills. I obviously do not drink from it when heavy traffic dictates full attention, but while cruising along on the wide-open highway it is quite easy to drink your coffee and not be distracted in the least. I do not even have to take my eyes off the road ahead to do so.

I occasionally smoke cigars in my cars, too, but of course I crack the window open. The car does not smell in the least. I do not leave the butts in the car. When I'm done with the cigar, it gets ejected out the window. It's just a leaf (biodegradeable, and all that...)

I have a black Labrador Retriever. He loves to go for rides in my cars. I love to take him along. You'll often see us tooling around together in the evening in my Z3 roadster with the top down. He sheds some hair. I vacuum it up later. He puts his nose on a window or two now and then. Windex works quite well on nose prints.

Here's the key: I clean my cars regularly, inside and out. If you take care of them by cleaning, there is no reason to forbid all activity that might "soil" the interior. Heck, it's just a car...

-Fred W

You really can't smell something that envelops you all the time. When I bought my 9000 in 1997, it was owned by a dog owner, the dog was an obese 10 stone old dog with a heart condition and very sweaty. The poor dog couldn't understand why I was driving off with the car. I took out the read seats and cleaned them with an industrial cleaner which I understood is used in pubs and hotels etc. Then I drove with open windows for a couple of months to get rid of the residual smell.

So the dog became attached to the Saab! Is this the first case where a dog is a Saab fanatic?

Do you have the rear seat folded down? By back, I meant the "trunk" or "boot" part of the car. If the rear seat is up, it would take a considerable accident for a briefcase to penetrate the rear seat back.