Recently purchased this SAAB with 50,000 miles. Can feel a knocking in the steering wheel. The knocks transmitted through the steering column do not seem to be related to the suspension nor conditions of the road surface (irregularities, pot holes, etc.).
The dealer (Volvo and SAAB) – highly recommended – replaced the left and right front stabilizer links/bushings and the right hydraulic transmission mount. This has reduced the incidence of the knocking, but not eliminated it completely.
Have yet to raise with the shop the knocking still continues.
Appreciate if any others have experienced a similar problem, and what was fixed to eliminate the knocking. My Thanks.
What ARE the knocks related to?
Engine rpms?
Specific vehicle attitude (accelerating, decelerating, braking)?
Is it a manual or automatic?
Does it knock in neutral?
The answers could really help narrow down the possibilities.
Is this a car that has seen snow and salt? If yes then my money is on a bad joint in the steering shaft.
Is your SAAB a front wheel or rear wheel drive?
We need more help here @Kaare. I own and work on one of these cars so I am very familiar with it.
Do you feel the knock when you back out of your driveway? I.e. Turning the steering wheel while driving over uneven surfaces at low speeds
Do you feel it while driving down the road? What speed? Straight or turning?
Does it do this all the time? Or just when its cold? Or hot? Or what??
“Is your SAAB a front wheel or rear wheel drive?”
Did Saab ever market a rear wheel drive car?
I don’t think so…
I tend to agree with bloody knuckles that the problem is likely to be a bad joint in the steering shaft.
"Can feel a knocking in the steering wheel."
How about more of a symptom description?
Does this indicate it’s something you can hear and feel?
Knock is a sound. Can you hear it?
What is it you feel? Does the steering wheel wiggle, visibly, or is there a jiggle felt?
You’d think the dealer techs would check wheel balance and wheel/tires for radial and lateral run-out, right? Has that been done?
CSA
Is your SAAB front or rear wheel drive ? I have heard about some little known obscure thing called GOOGLE that might help answer that question.
Or the OP could answer it. Who’d know better than the OP?
People come here for answers, not questions. If a mechanic asked if your corolla is rear wheel drive would you have faith in him?
Posters here are not allowed to ask the OP any questions?
Or the OP could answer it. Who’d know better than the OP?
George, you would be shocked at how many people don’t know if their cars are front or rear wheel drive. I watched an emission test on a Ford Aerostar van that the owner insisted to the tech was FWD. They put the van on the rollers and darn near crushed the tech in front of it when it lurched off the rollers.
“you would be shocked at how many people don’t know if their cars are front or rear wheel drive.”
Yup!
There are a whole lot of people out there who have no clue whatsoever regarding exactly how their own car functions, or how it was designed. While I can’t recall all of the misinformation that I have heard people spout over the years regarding their own cars, one of the ones that sticks in my memory is all of the folks who mistakenly believe that their car has a V-4 engine.
And, more to the point, back in the '70s I noticed a woman throwing sand under the rear tires of her Toronado in order to try to get out of an icy parking space. When I tried to be helpful by suggesting that her FWD car would benefit much more if she threw sand under the front tires, she told me that I was stupid because, “The front wheels are turning just fine. It’s the back ones that don’t want to go. I’ve been driving for more years than you have been alive, and I know how to drive my car.”
As the old saying tells us, You can’t fix stupid, and–ironically–the woman who called me stupid was totally ignorant about the workings of her own car.
4700 Pounds & FWD, Our 76 Toronado Was Lots Of Things, But It Was Never Stuck!
I think that 455 C.I. V-8 helped keep the front drive wheels pinned down, That and all that steel.
It was a 2-door and the doors were so big and heavy that the hinge pins had a short life expectancy.
CSA 
“4700 Pounds & FWD, Our 76 Toronado Was Lots Of Things, But It Was Never Stuck!”
Well this one was!
If you placed your car in the very tight, very icy parallel parking space that this one was in, and cranked the wheels to full lock, I think that yours would also have suffered from enough wheel spin to immobilize it.
Just a quick question, Did Saab ever make any RWD models?
^
No!
They did market a couple of rebadged GM and Subaru AWD vehicles, but they never made a RWD car.
The Saab 9-7x SUV was a rebadged Trailblazer. It was the only “Saab” built in the US and the only version of the GMT-360 based SUV’s that never offered RWD-only. It was only available with AWD.
Pretty sure all ‘real’ Saabs are FWD. Not including Saabarus or GM badge jobs.
VDCdriver: I remember Saabs with Ford Taunus V4 engines in the 1970s.