@GeorgeSanJose Time is money. We are mainly talking about RELIABILITY here for a person who needs a car for her outside sales job.
With respect to cost, a $25,000 new car will do just fine for sales. This buys a basic Camry of Honda Accord. The last house we bought was from a lady agent driving a Chevy. You can even lease a car for less than it costs to keep an old Saab running.
Hubby simply does not understand his wife’s needs.
+1 with @docnick
25K will buy you a pretty nice reliable car.
Actually, Saab is still making parts. In fact, their parts division was keeping the lights on for the car making division for a while. Parts are no longer hard to find, at least here in Winston-Salem where there is a terrific Saab & Volvo repair shop. I don’t know about your area, but it seems reasonable there is a Saab repair shop that can help you. My 2004 9-5 Arc is just broken in at 143K miles. I got it last year for $5500 and put about $1200 into it including Continental tires. I expect to drive it to 500k miles at which time I may be too old to continue driving anyway.
“I expect to drive it to 500k miles”
Are you serious?!
I suspect you’ll break the bank trying to nurse it along that many years
No offense intended
500k? Nothing a new engine and transmission can’t solve.
Not every car is worthy of a new engine and transmission . . .
Well maybe if you can roll it downhill for the entire duration with wind in the back…
Oh, absolutely. But if a fanatic wants to keep any car running for 500k, it just takes $$$$.
I think it is time you should move on to another more reliable and less expensive car to keep running. To get a good reliable engine installed for 3k dollars seems on the low end to me and might end up costing you more in the end. You help earn the money for the household so you should be able to decide what you want to drive for a car. If it were me I would be looking at a Japanese car for lower maintenance costs and better reliability.
Volvo has a TV commercial going now showing the original owner of a 1963 P1800 driving it down the road in show room condition. I think it has over a million miles recorded on it. That’s pretty cool but I would like to know how much has been spent over the years to keep the car going like that.
Herb Gordon and his Volvo have over 2 million miles by now . . .
He still has the Volvo, but lost his wife along the way…
Just goes to show that fanatical upkeep and repair can keep a car going just about forever.
Admirable as it is to keep that Volvo going so long . . .
That car is a deathtrap compared to modern cars
Herb Gordon is obviously a good driver, based on the way his car looks
But he might still get T-boned or rear-ended
You can’t outwit every situation
God forbid that should happen, but I would rather be in a modern car, versus that old Volvo
This is very interesting. I was born some mile from the SAAB factory. SAAB automobile is sold to, guess who, China! Now SAAB is just as it was before, an airplane factory; that division is NOT Chinese. They manufacture our jetfighter JAS 39 Gripen. SAAB cars, especially Turbo, are sensitive. You HAVE TO idle a minute or three after a hard highway trip, or the temperature gradients in the turbocharger had no time to flatten out. Oil burned, bearings coked, etc. If you service them and handle them correctly, more correctly than the average owner can do, they last forever. My neighbor in Sweden had one SAAB 99 Turbo that had more than 170,000 miles on the odometer, and he had done NOTHING to the entire drivetrain. As far as I know, he just drove on after that. Okay, he is a Mechanical Engineer with a great interest in cars…
Someone suggested a Mazda 3 for the lady. Good choice!!
About Volvos. A friend of mine bought a used Volvo 745. I thought that the interior was a little worn, so I asked him about mileage. 440,000 miles, he said. How many times did the previous owner replace the engine? -None, was the answer. He knew the previous owner. Everything boils down to handling and service. The previous owner was a taxi cab owner. The engine was cold only on service intervals…
The O.P. only posted once, almost a week ago…
@Caddyman By now the OP may have a worse marital problem than a car problem. Hope she can find a rational way out. At least we gave her good advice.
If you decide to repair the car, there are many engine remanufacturers out there. Most parts stores carry a line with a decent warranty. Some people have mixed reviews about these. For something you can count on, look into a Jasper. These are considered the top of the line and shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars more than one from the parts stores. If you consider it something that will be around for a while, go this route. There is then the core charge. You will need to turn in the old engine for a core, otherwise pay a few hundred dollar penalty. You didn’t mention what was wrong with the old engine. If it has a hole through the block, you may have to eat the core charge as the old engine is scrap metal.