cutting42
Arrived at B4 Hacker Ergo
Don't know if this is a Saab weakness, but I remember an old colleague in Dulux Australia bringing back a Saab 99 (non-turbo) from a secondment in England in the 1980s. Lovely car, but then something went wrong with the fuel injection system, and it had to be expensively fixed. Then the garage guy said, "Oh, by the way, how's your gearbox?" "WHY????" asked my colleague. "Oh, it's just that a reasonable percentage of them die about this mileage." On asking how much replacement would cost, the dealer mentioned a sum vaguely reminiscent of the distance between galaxies. Suddenly he decided that it was time for a change - he didn't get much of a trade-in deal -. the Australian motor trade had heard about Saab gearboxes.
On the other hand, a colleague has run a 9-3 for approaching 20 years, and I don't remember her ever having gearbox problems.
I have owned around 9 Saabs including the 99 EMS (injection model) and Turbo, classic 900, new 900, 93’s all turbo’d and not one has had a gearbox fault. I also had a lot of friends with Saabs and I don’t remember gearboxes ever coming up as an issue. Water pumps were a thing as were the early injection systems. Fab cars, still in mourning for their demise.