As someone who is in the automobile repair biz, I can tell you that this is NOT an inexpensive repair. It is an engine that gets fried when the timing belt breaks. What we call in 'interference' engine. We love to see them come in the shop with broken timing belts.

To all the 'money leaves America' folks?

Where do you think most of the parts that make a car a car come from? Sure, they may be made here,but a lot of the companies that MAKE the componets in the good 'ole U.S of A. are now foreign owned.

Like those tires on your car?? Got Michelins? Guess what? Money is going to France. Firestone/Bridgestone??? Japan there. Coopers??? How about Mexico and Canada.

It is not so simple anymore to just 'buy american'

I'll do what I can do. Remember the country Cadillac song? I'm not going to go that far.

Yes, I am aware of that, but many cars have non-interference engines. I would expect a simple 4 cylinder to be non-interference.

Actually, due to increasing restrictive emmision laws, most engines are made as an interference engine, this is due to the lowered squish height in the cylinders.

Yep. It was easy to blow those old turbos that lacked intercoolers. I had one way back when. Had to wait for the turbo to cool before shutting the engine off. This is why you had so many with blown turbos. Many a owner never followed these simple guidelines. To replace one was extremely expensive too.

The current gen are incredibly reliable. This includes mid 1990's SAAB's and later. Basically, what you would call the 'GM Years'. When GM took over pretty much, they turned the whole thing around. They even invested $500 million into a new SAAB factory in Sweden. It is probably one of the slickest factories out there at the moment, completely automated.

If you look at my layout of where the car is made though, I was a bit shocked to see 49% made in Germany now. Only about 33% is made in Sweden???? SAAB is more German now that Swedish. What is up with that??? That makes it lose some of its charm I think.

-S