Car in garage - any options/recourse?

BrunoM

Hi all

My car has been in garage now for 8 weeks. Again and again in the last 4-5 weeks they have claimed they think they have the problem solved and are just testing or waiting for one more thing to be done etc, then it turns out it doesn't work how they expected.

The root cause is an electrics fault (Saab 9-3, 56 reg) and it appears it is extremely odd and tricky to fix. Numerous stories from the garage about Saab model changes to include fibreoptics GM technology which didn't mesh well, ordering new computers from the Netherlands because the dealership charge was too high, etc etc etc.

I've been trying to be patient, but am feeling pretty hard done by so far and can't really believe things will turn out well.

* is there anything that I can do realistically apart from wait for them to 'finish'?
* is there anything I can do if their bill is incredibly high? Supposedly one of the reasons this has been so slow is they have been trying to do everything in the most cost-effective way etc but no numbers have been quoted now in a long time.
* The car is out of warranty (bought used approved 2 years ago with a 1 year/12000 mile warranty - have only done 6000 miles...) - have I got any hope if I pursue this with the Saab dealer that sold it to me, or with Saab/GM directly?

Thanks for any thoughts. During the 8-so-far weeks, my insurance and MOT have also run out, so that's nice. Can't quite convince myself to reinsure yet given the car may never work again for all I know, but I suppose I'd better.

Edit: car has only done 31000 total (bought it with 25k on clock 2 years ago)

bartelbe

The first thing I would do is call them and tell them you want them to call you first before doing work/ getting parts. Then ask for a price before the work is done. At the moment you are effectively writing them a blank cheque, and could owe a fortune.

keith1950

* The car is out of warranty (bought used approved 2 years ago with a 1 year/12000 mile warranty - have only done 6000 miles...) - have I got any hope if I pursue this with the Saab dealer that sold it to me, or with Saab/GM directly?

Unfortunately you have no recourse with GM who sold SAAB in July 2009 , SAAB then went bankrupt and what was left was sold to ' National Electric Vehicle' of Sweden.... I haven't heard anything since !!

You need to ask the garage what the outstanding repair costs are so far. It depends which 'computers' they are referring to but as an example an engine ECU would normally be about £550.

Try talking to a Vauxhall dealer and see if they would be prepared to run a diagnosis....after all the SAAB was basically just an overpriced Vectra !!

KTF

There are several Saab independents as well which may be a better bet.

Apples2

Saabs can an be a complete pita.
I had weird electrics, radio was intermittent, dash instruments went erratic for a few seconds, on start up dash would be completely dead for 20 seconds.

Final straw for me was driving along a motorway at night and reaching over to turn the radio off. As son as I pressed the radio off button I lost all lights for about ten seconds before coming back on again.

You'd be surprised how scary it is going 70 (cough) on an unlit M5 and suddenly losing your headlights. I was completely blind coasting in the direction I remembered the road went.

The fault was the air bag connector in the drivers door pillar. Work that out!!! No airbag faults at all.

I got shot of the car straight after.