Saab and the Simpsons vol.2

You may remember the found of Saab 9-3X in the Simpsons. It was and still is published on the great Internet Movie Car Database.

There are actually two more. A Saab classic 900 convertible and a 9-3 II, as seen at the embedded pictures above. Together with another 230+ car models.

src : imcdb.org

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Saabs coming to Saab Session Slovakia 2013

Saab Session Slovakia 2013 is in two weeks and people are registering. As requested some of them are sending photos of Saabs which will attend. And it starts to be very interesting. Years are ranging from 1959 to 2011. Countries at the moment are Slovakia, Poland and Czech Republic.

Many of the Saabs will be unique and it seems, that in the the 50-60 Saabs collection will be real beauties as well as rarities. Saab 93 and 96, red classic 900 convertible, Saab 9000 CDE, former Victor Mullers 9-5NG, 9-5NG SportCombi. Many hirsched or maptuned. I will have the luck to drive a 9-4X AWD which is unfortunately not mine. But again, one of the very few around.

Following is a walkthrough what is to expect. All of the Saabs which sent photos are at this dedicated page. Just look.

The ongoing updated page with attending Saabs is to find here.

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Experience with Volvo XC60 D5 AWD after 10.000 km

Discussions about different brands between Saab fans are happening very often these days and for many reasons. Some of them can't wait and have to buy. I had to buy as well, because the leasing of my company car expired. My choice was this XC60. It is is my fourth Volvo, my first SUV and this is the  experience after 10.000 kilometers.

It was produced a couple of months before the current facelift. It has a D5 engine (215 HP / 420 Nm), manual transimission and AWD Haldex gen 4. The middle level of equipment.

How does it drive 

The current D5 engine is the strongest diesel in the offer. It gives the car an acceleration time of 8.5s (0-100kmh) and quite good performance in 80-120 kmh and similar accelerations. It is not a racer, but it's not lazy. For me as a petrol fan is diesel lazy by definition, but this was a positive surprise. In easy terrain when a hill comes, the engine doesn't suffer.

I like the chassis as well. As an SUV newbie I was very afraid of the behavior in fast curves. But no problems, it's stable, it doesn't float and there aren't no tendencies to fly out of the curve. The suspension is adjusted somewhere in the middle between soft and hard.

The AWD came to work rarely until now. In my previous XC70 I had head twirling feeling, not in this one. The snow season arrives, so no experience with snow drive.

It's stable on country roads, highways as well as easy terrain. I have no experience with harder terrain and probably will never get one. Check this video (start at ~4:30) what it can do. A hill descent control is in the car.

Result : stable in all intended road and surface conditions. Comfortable. Very good.

How does it feel

The interior is a significant contributor to the good feeling in a car. This one is plastic, the materials used inside are below the standard. Many details are like from chinese flea market. This was a huge dissapointment. The buttons on the dashboard were bigger in the previous generations of Volvos, these ones seems to be designed by a mobile app designer. Small, sometimes without sense. Volvo ruined the "user interface" big time.

There are also parts of aluminium on the dashboard, which in the "right" angle with the sun, flashes the reflected sunlight directly into your eyes. Which genius invented this ?

So : if you go for an XC60, an upgraded dashboard is advisable. I had no budget for it.

The feeling to sit in an SUV, higher than normal, is great. You have a better view of the road and feeling of safety. This one has a sunroof, nothing fancy, just fine. It starts to be loud after 80 kmh, as well as all other opened windows. It's a bit soon, on S60 i closed the sunroof at 100 kmh. But it's ok.

Volvo always could produce (or choose) good seats. The XC60 is not an exception, the seats are very comfortable and have good set-up options also for me with 191cm height. No problems after multiple hours drive as well. Ain important and big plus.

They degraded the sound of the basic stereo. It was a rule of thumb, that even the lowest level of speakers had a very solid sound in all previous generations. So I didn't ordered an upgraded one, which was a mistake. If you are sensitive to this, consider an upgrade here.

The trunk is large. It's large enough for 4 people on vacation as well as for a family with 1-2 children.

Result : Volvo made here many compromises. There isn't a single thing for which you would start "develop relationship" to the car. Nothing special, nothing fancy, mostly dissapointing.

Onboard electronic systems

I've kicked out all the fancy assistants. for lanes, BLIS and so on. Besides the common things (ABS etc) only one thing left : City Safety, which breaks in low speeds when sensing a crash. It actually works well on ramps while leaving a parking spot. Fine, if it saves crashes and pedestrians, it's ok.

All on-board electronics has a slight delay when changing something. Sound volume, settings of the car etc. As if Volvo used a cheap slow processors for it. You have to get used to it. But why ...

In spite of that it has a very good GPS navigation system. Maps are up to date, complicated crossroads etc are easy to understand. It talks a bit too much, but sometimes it's necessary. It has many settings possibilities to match your needs.

All the bluetooth equipment works very fine. The phone calls are clean and loud (in contrast to my Saab). With a very positive surprise I found out, that it plays mp3's from my Android phone wireless and it is possible to change songs from the steering wheel. It seems that some features are dependent on the Android versions, for example from the old phone (Android 2.x) it could load the track list, not so from the new phone (4.1.2). Maybe at the next service check they upgrade the firmware, which I was used to get for previous Volvos.

It does have the AUX and USB inputs, which is great, if you don't have or don't want to use the bluetooth fancy thingie. 

The start-stop system (DRIVe) works fine. If you stop at the red light, it restarts the engine when you engage the clutch. In most situations it's ok to have the system working, except traffic jams with continuous slow movement. You can switch it off with a single button. It striked a couple of times at the beginning, as it would learn something, now it's ok. It starts fast but the turbo definitely dislikes the frequent restarts.

Result : It's fine, but you have to get used to a delay for most of the onboard systems react on you. Very good GPS.

The not understood :

Smokers be aware, you will have ash on the back seat, whatever you do. That wasn't in that extent in the previous Volvos and it isn't in my Saab.

With open windows it is loud, it has something to do with aerodynamics. The engine sound is dampen, but I've seen better dumped diesels (bmw5).

It does not have the coolant / engine heat indicator. Cold starts and winter made easy. Even better when someone ruins the engine after a while.

It does not have daily headlights so the "Auto light" feature is useless. The two additional headlights in the front are just a decoration.

Economy and value for money

It wasn't cheap, with the middle level equipment (Momentum) and a few extras, the list price was around 45.000 €. I could get a discount but because of the interior it was still too much.

The officially claimed combined fuel consumption of the D5 is 6.5 litres / 100 km. The reality is 8.4 litres. I didn't reset the computer for 5.000 km. Than I did a series of resets and tried to get this number down on several longer trips. Without success. Hm.

Result : The XC60 is too expensive and Volvo is not saying the truth on fuel consumption.

Conclusion 

Pros :

• good engine
• stable chassis
• safety features
• SUV feeling
• GPS and bluetooth properly implemented

Cons : 

• interior materials and sun light reflection from aluminium dashboard parts
• low quality sound of the basic set
• non existing coolant / engine heat indicator
• delay on on-board electronics settings
• price and fuel economy

Overall : 
It's exactly at the edge. It drives good but there is too much saved money and compromises in the interior. It requires to get used to that. It has not a single thing for which I would start to love the car. It's no problem to drive it the next 5 years or 150.000 km but this XC60 generation is simply a car from getting safely from point A to point B and that's it. The fuel numbers aren't true but still somewhere in the expected range. The XC60 does, what is required but nothing more. Is it a good aproach to keep the customer with Volvo for the next purchase ? I doubt.

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Photography

From time to time extra high quality Saab photos appears online. There are not many people which can do such a gorgeous pictures. This time it's Adrian Burt, a swedish photographer. You can see more on his website.

There are not only Saabs and not only cars, but many things, most of them very eye catchy. Most of them are photos, such as the picture above, but the site contains also CGIs such as the one below.

Really nice. 

 Source : Adrian Burt

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The winter

src : Save Saab Museum facebook

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The little things in life making me smile

A new cap for my convertible ! :) End of summer is a very bad timing but I just couldn't resist. I like the "Less is more" in general and it also fits into Saabs philosophy. Also, one has to be very carefull with types of these caps, not to look like an idiot. This one is fine. It made a big smile on my face, it's a nice phrase and it is not everywhere to get.

In this context "Less is more" is a quote of the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe describing minimalist design. One of his beautiful creations is Villa Tugendhat in Brno, an UNESCO World Heritage Site. I had the pleasure to see it from the inside for a couple of hours. It's a wonderful piece of architecture, minimalist with many wonderful details. If you come to Brno, don't miss the visit, but plan at least a month ahead.

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Pre-production NEVS SAAB 9-3 is here

First pre-production Saab from NEVS. Photo credit : SaabsUnited

Today the first pre-production car was rolling out from the production belt in Trollhattan. From the outside it looks like a 9-3 Griffin, except the Saab logo on the bonnet, which is black and without the Griffin.

You can see a lot more photos here at SaabsUnited. 

If the Saab is indeed full GM-free, it should have many different parts than the Griffin. But this is not the production model. NEVS stated several times, that the new Saab will be a slightly facelifted 9-3.

A valid point brought Saabblog.net, namely if showing this Saab in the time of IAA Frankfurt is a good timing.

A pre-production car lies between the prototype (mule) and real production car. It's intended for testing purposes, to find errors and leaks on the car as well as on the production belt before it goes into the real production. 

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Saab over Saab

A daily picture from the Saab service. Location : Suchomel Saab.

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The unexpected classic beauties

A one-day / one-night business trip to Prague brought three totally unexpected classic cars. The first two were definitely going for a meeting somewhere, the third is a car of my colleague.

The first is an Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Coupé Touring Superleggera, built in 1948. Because of the dutch numberplate I suppose it came on a trailer. But you never know. On the next day was a special Alfa event in Brno 200 km away. Such a baby costs 100.000 EUR+.

The second was a Jaguar E-Type Series 2 Convertible. A local one. And again with high probability it was going for a convention. It was a rainy day and on these days you don't take out an E-Type convertible without a very good reason.

The third one is a Datsun 240Z, a project of my colleague. He bought it for a reasonable price and restoring it with the time. The sound was just georgious, very similar to this sound. Actually he says, it's too much basses at certain rpm's.

Three vintage and pretty rare cars at one day. It doesn't happen often.

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Saab @ work

These pictures came to me yesterday with the comment : "Look how our friend Milos is going into the woods!". A very old 9000 which is actually used as a working Saab. From time to time at least.

It's actually another prove how robust the construction is and what can it hold. If you had the same feeling as me, that the 9000 should be treated more softer, than you should know, that the car is in good condition and this treatment doesn't do anything to the 9000. In worst case, it's dirty inside.

These guys love Saab. They are running Suchomel Saab, a good dealership and service for many years, organising annual meetings, helping with advise and live Saab. They live and love Saab in their own way.

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Update : Saab Session Slovakia 2013

Things are moving in organising the Saab Session Slovakia 2013.

The program is ready as well as all registration, accomodation informations and things around. You can find an english version as well as german version of the whole event information.

The event will be two and half days long, from Friday till Sunday. A Saab drive, a flatboat / raft ride, a joint lunch and dinner are in. A few things more.

The Strecno castle, seen on the photo above is a nice one, everything happens around the longest slovakian river Váh which we will cross a couple of times on a ferry and the flatboats.

There is also a map of the Saab ride on Saturday.


View SAAB Session Slovakia 2013 in a larger map

One thing remains open and that's the attendance of our Saabull model, which was present last year and than survived the large floods in spring. It is logistically complicated, but everybody wants to see it there, so let's see.

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