[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by beepbeep

My daily driver is a Audi S4.
SAAB sludge is unfortunately very real. 9000 Aero and 9-5 engine differ. 9-5 engine has thinner piston rings, smaller oil volume, no low-level oil sender and catalyst underneath the sump. Blow-by is much higher on B2x5 than on B2x4 engine. SAAB 9-5 engine is watered down/weak copy of 9000 engine with less oil. An attempt to reuse same old iron duke and lower the fuel consumption with thinner piston rings. It backfired big time and was probably one of the reasons why they went bankrupt.

There are a bunch of 9-5 Aeros out there with well over 100k. A PCV update and prudent oil change intervals are the key. Plus let's face facts, Saab died because GM tried to badge engineer them and killed the unique character of the brand. Not saying that the 9000 wasn't a superior car, but the 9-5 can be a good one too.

Originally Posted by porwolf

I don't have children. Child car seats have been mandatory for quite some time now. I cannot understand why car companies don't have cars with integral child car seats that can be easily switched for adult seats? Adding a child seat to an adult seat seems such a Rube Goldberg contraption to me. Modern cars come with all kinds of gimmicks, why not something really useful?

Some of the Volvos have built in child seats, which are clever.

Originally Posted by RWebb

does the propensity to eat head gaskets and the weak transmissions apply to all Subarus or just a particular year range (around MY 2000, IIRC)

I'm not entirely sure, but I know that the turbo and NA flat 4 as found in the WRX, Legacy GT, Forester XT, etc all had issues. A quick Google search uncovered about a million head gasket threads as well as a Subaru recall for a coolant additive and extended head gasket warranty.