It is hardly touched only in relationship to the milage. If you divide the 1000000 miles by 3 you get 333333.333 miles per head gasket. I am sure no one would be up in arms if their GM 60°V6 went 333333.333 miles per intake gasket failure!!! 1/3 of a million miles per head gasket is an acceptable failure rate!
One Million Miles and 600qt of Mobile 1.
- Thread starter Bebop
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That's a great term "Saabishness"...but it's very true.
I drive a Saab as a friction tester at the airport where I work. After a mere 9,000 miles, our 1989 turbo was replaced with a new version of the same vehicle. It's a great car, too, but it just doesn't have the same skin and bones as the '89. It met the bean counters and lost its character.
I drive a Saab as a friction tester at the airport where I work. After a mere 9,000 miles, our 1989 turbo was replaced with a new version of the same vehicle. It's a great car, too, but it just doesn't have the same skin and bones as the '89. It met the bean counters and lost its character.
Changing a head gasket on most vehicles is more than 'hardly touched' whether it goes for 50,000 miles or 5 million miles. My point was that it should've said something like "replaced head gasket 3 times in 1 million miles which is an acceptable failure rate and is better than to be expected". I agree that a head gasket every 333k miles is not bad at all. I just don't care for the way they worded it.
The reason for the semantics is I hear people talk about how they haven't had to hardly touch their vehicle, but they have replaced the alternator 3 times in 100k miles, etc. That is not an acceptable failure rate.
Thats like any manufacture today, even toyota.
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I can picture it now!
The shirt would say "I just drove one million miles and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"
Now thats funny..Bwwwaaahhh
On a slightly more serious note, I think its also shocking that Mobil didn't come to the party either.
Or use Pennzoil for 3,000 mile OCIs and your Chevy Pickup can go the same distance. At least the Pennzoil-Quaker State Company gave the guy a new pickup.
I guess Exxon-Mobil is having a hard time scraping enough dough together for Lee R. Raymond's $400 Million retirement package.
EOM's new corporate slogan: Buy more Mobil 1...we need the money!
http://www.countryroads.net/countrywheels/story.cfm?story_id=225
I disagree with the statement about head gaskets.
From 1975- 1985 we owned 3 "B" normally aspirated SAAB 99s, all ended up with mileage well in excess of 100K. No head gasket replacement. The first had to have a water pump and a camshaft replaced.
In the mid-80s, we owned two 900 "B" engine Turbos, one with extremely advanced mileage. One needes an exhaust valve (just one) ground at 178K. No other engine work, except that (naturally) the head gasket had to be replaced with the valve grind.
From the mid-80s to 2001, we owned three "H" engine 9000s, two normally aspirated and one turbo. Serpentine belt replaced on all three, new alternator on one, but NO engine work, head gaskets or otherwise.
Since 2001, we are on our second SAAB 9-5 Turbo. No engine work on either car.
Let's see, that's ten (10) SAABs over 31 years, with what I consider a really minimal amount of work, collectively. An exemplary performance. (I'm not counting the two 3-cyl 2-stroke SAABs I owned. Those things were so simple they just never caused trouble.)
Note1: All the 4 cyl 2.0 / 2.3 SAAB engines I've owned have taken 4 quarts, ± a few tenths, including the filter.
Note2: I think this also addresses the post about SAABs being "cheep you know what." Yeah, I know what- a great car, that's "what."
From 1975- 1985 we owned 3 "B" normally aspirated SAAB 99s, all ended up with mileage well in excess of 100K. No head gasket replacement. The first had to have a water pump and a camshaft replaced.
In the mid-80s, we owned two 900 "B" engine Turbos, one with extremely advanced mileage. One needes an exhaust valve (just one) ground at 178K. No other engine work, except that (naturally) the head gasket had to be replaced with the valve grind.
From the mid-80s to 2001, we owned three "H" engine 9000s, two normally aspirated and one turbo. Serpentine belt replaced on all three, new alternator on one, but NO engine work, head gaskets or otherwise.
Since 2001, we are on our second SAAB 9-5 Turbo. No engine work on either car.
Let's see, that's ten (10) SAABs over 31 years, with what I consider a really minimal amount of work, collectively. An exemplary performance. (I'm not counting the two 3-cyl 2-stroke SAABs I owned. Those things were so simple they just never caused trouble.)
Note1: All the 4 cyl 2.0 / 2.3 SAAB engines I've owned have taken 4 quarts, ± a few tenths, including the filter.
Note2: I think this also addresses the post about SAABs being "cheep you know what." Yeah, I know what- a great car, that's "what."
I agree 427. However, I wish it was a different OCI, maybe 5000 miles. Now folks will say, "see there I told you that doing 3000 mile OCIs is the answer".
Do you think that "In 17 years the car used more than 600 quarts" probably means maybe only 25 more quarts & not 200 more quarts? I think so, just wondering.
Cool to have another owner with more experience with the older models on here!
I speak from experience as a forum moderator, which is not the best way to gauge actual frequency of repairs, as people never post unless there's a problem. I would note that an awful lot of folks seemed to get head gasket leaks on the new gen 900s b204l engines. Almost always it was a result of improper head bolt torque or something along those lines.
What it really was in both cases is the relatively small number of cold starts.
Here's a bit of basic info on the SAAB H engine family, which ran from the 80's up until the Ecotec. Actually, it's still in use in the 9-5.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_H_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_H_engine
This Saab ran on Mobil-1 PAO or was that Mobil-1 GrpIII?
I think the fact that he drove 71,428 miles per year for 14 years had a lot to do with reaching a million miles.
That car spent a lot of time warmed up and running... he averaged more than a thousand hours behind the wheel every year.
If he ran Mobil 1 at 10K OCI he was still changing oil close to every 7 weeks.
That car spent a lot of time warmed up and running... he averaged more than a thousand hours behind the wheel every year.
If he ran Mobil 1 at 10K OCI he was still changing oil close to every 7 weeks.
As others have mentioned, it's the lack of thermal cycling helping him achieve 333K miles on one head gasket.
Not only is alum almost 3 times as thermally conductive, but also expands 2 times as much. I'm assuming that's why graphite was/is used on head gaskets. IE to allow the parts to slide while maintaining contact.
http://www.engineersedge.com/properties_of_metals.htm
EDIT: The above link doesn't specify what alloy (if any) the aluminum was, so the thermal conductivity/expansion numbers will be ballpark.
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I guess Exxon-Mobil is having a hard time scraping enough dough together for Lee R. Raymond's $400 Million retirement package.
EOM's new corporate slogan: Buy more Mobil 1...we need the money!
http://www.countryroads.net/countrywheels/story.cfm?story_id=225
Gulp!!!...$400M...thats scary!! Its no wonder they are going GRP3 at the old PAO prices...they really do need the cash!
Regardless of lube capacity its still going to be one 1989 Saab 900 SPG going 1001,385 miles for 600 + quarts of M1 oil . Miles per quart and miles per filter are more meaningful numbers when evaluating or comparing engine lube programs or combinations then miles per change .
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