Car (or bike) Chat!

[Audio Al]

I saw that, money well spent imv. Didn't know they did boob jobs for blokes, no way are they real

This is my ebay user name big-b(.)(.)s

[Gaz]

Now that I can finally post pics, here's my Saab

[Marco]

Oh, love it... Proper cars those, and built to last! And yours looks mint. Was so sorry when Saabs stopped being made.

What's it like on the inside? I like nice dashboard pic

Marco.

[Gaz]

If you get up close it's not quite so mint, scuffed bumpers, stone chips etc but for 18 years old and 140k on the clock it's not too bad.
Interior is quite tidy, driver's seat is a bit rough but easily brought back with a small repair and some leather dye.
I personally don't like the dashboard, it's wooden but looks more like a melted Mars bar has been smeared across it, I intend to replace it with either grey or carbon fibre effect (both factory options when new)

[Marco]

Still got great engines though, and the bodywork is superb. I like cars that are 'over-engineered', and where there is evidence of genuine quality, not the opposite, through mass-production and mindless cost-cutting, and for me Saabs have always ticked those boxes and exuded quality.

I had a one of their turbos, in 1994, forget which model (but would recognised it if I saw it), and it was a great car. It was pretty quick, but more importantly you felt that you were sat inside the product of a company who cared and took a pride in what they did. That feeling is very important to me, not just with cars, but most things I own

Marco.

[antonio]

Nice buy Gaz.

[Audio Al]

I like the styling of the wheels

[struth]

nice.. saab made good motors

[dave2010]

I fairly recently drove my car around 500 miles. Towards the end of the journey, a whining noise emerged.
After that for a while the noise wasn’t such a big problem, but yesterday I had it booked in for investigation and repair. Diagnosis - worn out front wheel bearing. Replaced, and most problems disappeared. That was yesterday. I drove it up to 70mph - no big problems.

Today I went out early, still no problems. Them mrs d wanted to take the car to collect a delivery from Waitrose. Some while after that she phoned to say the car was making a horrible noise. It’d been parked for about 35 minutes at the supermarket. I ended up taking a taxi, and arranging a pickup back to the garage, perhaps 15 or so miles away. When I arrived at the car it was indeed making a horrendous noise - sounds like a blown exhaust - but it was noted as OK yesterday.

The car was lifted back to the garage, and a quick diagnosis was that the catalytic converter had been removed, as this contains platinum, which has apparently become more valuable recently. Also perhaps some of the sensor cables were cut - I will get a fuller report tomorrow.

Worse than this, I mentioned this in a phone call tonight to someone else, who said that there’d been an item on Radio 2 about exactly this kind of problem earlier this morning.

Could it be that some “enterprising” local b*****d heard the programme, and thought to try this?

To quote Queen Victoria “We are not amused”.

Bummer!

[Pigmy Pony]

That really is a sickener - hope it's not too expensive to replace, although if it's worth nicking it must have some value. And as is often the case, it's the damage caused by the thieving scrotes. I did hear a few years ago of a spate of catalyst thefts from Mercedes Sprinter vans.

Could you perhaps replace with a non-cat system, or is it a legal requirement? I bet you'd gain a bit more bhp and shed some weight without one.

Sorry if this sounds impertinent, but why was Mrs. Dave collecting a delivery from Waitrose? We don't have a Waitrose, but it does sound like they haven't fully grasped the concept of "delivery service"