Dodged a bullet

So you get an idea in your head, an idea that you’re going to give new life to a sexy old SAAB and at the same time fulfill a dream of ticking off a car from your list of must-owns… 

So you start digging for deals… Because this want is heavily tempered by the fact that you have very little money to throw at this particular misguided dream. And then you find one on Autotrader… And if you can trust the pictures it’s simply gorgeous. The 9-5 was always a beautiful wagon… Or “CombiSport” in SAAB-speak. 

You call the guy, make an appointment, he tells you the thing has no issues and that nothing needs to be done on it. So you make an appointment to see it a few days later… And you start dreaming … Or obsessing (depends on your perspective).  The next day he texts you that the AC suddenly no longer works … He also tells you that he’s got the part and that all that now needs to get done is the installation of this compressor… So you negotiate the price down and he’ll now throw in the winter tires on mags for free.

So the meet is back on. 

And then you open the passenger side door and notice the ridiculous amount of rust that’s enveloped the entire hinge assembly… Right before the guy who is selling it opens the trunk and shows you half a dozen spare parts that he drives around with just in case the thing magically and instantly stops working… With that comes the much appreciated disclosure that it’s had an accident, that the windows sometimes fall into the door frame, that the power seat controls fall out and remember, the AC compressor no longer works… But you so WANT this to work out that you take the SAAB out on a test drive anyways and while it goes like stink you can’t help but notice the smell of Prestone everywhere and that the windshield is coated in the stuff… Hmmm.

That’s when you spend the next two days unwinding your dream and remembering that the last time you bought something that was that broken it nearly killed you… And so today I did the reasonable thing and texted Stephan that I wasn’t going to buy his sweet but massively flawed 9-5 Aero.