Has BusinessWeek been reading TTAC? Writer Michael Frank's assessment of Saab and Volvo sounds extremely familiar… Frank places Saab's problems right where they belong, stating GM "hasn't let Saab do anything creative, let alone steer itself in any direction other than toward total irrelevancy, for a good decade." But what's wrong with Volvo? "[L]ike famously angst-ridden compatriot filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, Volvo fears sexy… its slammed and ultra-turboed R-edition cars… are, for all intents and purposes, neutered and dead [because] Volvo is worried about fuel economy." The biggest problem for both, though: they've lost their brand distinction. As we've pointed out, Volvo no longer holds the upper hand in safety. Turbocharging is no long a Saab distinction. He wants something new from both automakers but concludes, "Oh, right, neither Volvo nor Saab has a new story to tell. And until they do, neither carmaker will have much of a future." To which all we can add is "Amen."
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Volvo should skip the R-series, it was too muddled. Better to make practical, stylish cars for the non-SUV set. In fact, they would be well poised to take on the high-end eco-set. There are plenty of people who would not be caught dead in a BMW. Wagons will make a come back if gas prices stay high, so this is their chance.
Saab was to make small sporting hatches. That is it. And they couldn’t even manage that. They bloated the size, made them ugly instead of cute, and basically killed the entire Saab brand.
Both these brands were killed by BMW envy. Not everyone can be BMW.
Aren’t “losing brand distinction” and having a “new story to tell” antithetical? I suppose it’s a matter of degrees, new as in evolution, rather than revolution. It’s not that I disagree – new, genuine Saab and Vovlo products are lacking. It’s just the short hand in Frank’s article makes it all sound so easy.
I have always liked both automakers. My first car was a Volvo 240 turbo wagon so I am a fan for life I suppose. I was seriously considering a XC70 or V70 as my wife’s next car to replace our SUV, but am very perplexed by Volvo ditching the 2.5T, T5 in favor of the less efficient NA I6 and depending on the turbo variant, the I6 is also less powerful. What is the point of buying a wagon if you are getting SUV fuel economy???? I am at a loss. It is particularly odd considering Ford is on the verge of turbocharging a large portion of its lineup.
Volvo needs a hybrid and a minivan. Scratch that: Volvo needs a hybrid minivan. No other brand holds as much promise for the well-to-do family that’s superficially worried about the environment but too image-conscious to buy a Prius.
Saab should be building WRX-killers. Instead, they built WRXes by another name. How great is that?
in a perfect world Volvo would have become the first car brand to go completely hybrid….but as everyone knows that won’t happen cuz it doesn’t have enough $$$$$.
Volvo doesn’t even have a single hybrid. Or a minivan, which would be a perfect fit for the brand.
A Volvo minivan?! No, Volvo is known for wagons. Wagons are the anti-minivan/SUV. Instead, create hybrid wagons that can haul people and junk, and make an R version that can haul ass.
I’m reading and writing from the driver’s seat of a (parked) S80, which has struck me in the past couple days as a Swedish Buick. But in a good way, actually. Contrasted with the C30, it’s indeed difficult get a handle on who the company is today. To compare Volvo and Saab, however, is like comparing the outlooks of Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson.
To compare Volvo and Saab, however, is like comparing the outlooks of Tom Cruise and Michael Jackson.
That’s a TTAC-worthy line right there! I have a lot of symptahty for both automakers, but miss the Saab 900s and Volvo 740 wagons.
This said, it’s a lot more difficult nowadays to be a “different” car company by any other mean than marketing.
Are toyotas more reliable? Ford and Nissan now say their cars are just as reliable.
Is BMW the ultimate driving machine? Perhaps, but 95% of BMW buyers wouldn’t know if the TV didn’t tell them so. Hell, most don’t even know which are the driving wheels!
Obviously, if you make a marketing claim, you need some real stuff to back it up, but it remains mostly a marketing push that distinguishes cars from one another. And some enthusiasts, of course.
I almost bought a Volvo S60R back when it came out but two test drives cured me of the desire. It was a thoroughly awful performance car and not a very luxurious luxury car. An old S4 was better in every respect and even they weren’t any good. So I passed, it’s probably better for Volvo to refind it’s mojo doing something else as everyone has their hands in the performance pie today and they do it better.
The day Volvo makes a minivan is the day I drive my 240 into a lake of rusty spoons and Granadas.
Lincoln and Mercury need to go away and Volvo needs to be put into a position where it can take up the slack of both (which wouldn’t be that hard as both Mercury’s and Lincoln’s sales are laughable at best).
Ford NEEDS to keep Volvo. They have a great history and wonderful name association.
Put another nail in Ford’s coffin if they dump Volvo.
I would love to see both brands doing better. But name a GM brand that outshines Saab (in 2008 having two cars launched 1997 and 2002) or a Ford brand that outperforms Volvo.
Both brands suffer from their own earlier mistakes and now their parents problems.
Regarding hybrids, no one seems to need or want them except when they look like a Prius.
Both brands need heavy investments to be able to develop new models, and a more thought through and better crafted marketing.
Frank’s wrong!
Saab DOES have a story to tell.
It DOES have a Unique Selling Proposition in the market place.
He just hasn’t owned one long enough to discover it.
He’s correct in stating that turbocharging isn’t unique. Nor is Saab’s proclaimed emphasis on dynamic safety.
Lots of other cars do both. Better, some of them.
No, what Saab does better than any other car is frustrate its owner to the point of tears and sleeplessness. It can figure out interesting and unheard of ways to break, fail, leak, rattle, and buzz.
You can bring your new Saab to the dealer and see 40 of its brothers and sisters already in line for the service bay.
Find out that every Saab loaner is out for the next two weeks because of the number of Saab repairs ahead of you.
Learn that the constant and complete electronic system failure that intermittantly strikes your Saab is not “repeatable” at the dealer, so don’t call us any more about it. Saab USA won’t listen to you either.
The fix when every idiot light comes on and bells start dinging: find a place to pull over as soon as you can. Stop the car. Turn it off. Turn it on again — it should clear up. “Saabs do that,” we’re told, as if to comfort us.
You’ll find out the brakes are “supposed” to wear out in 24k miles, aren’t covered under the “maintenance-is-free” 3-year program, and set you back $280 a pair.
You’ll learn that when it gets cold out and the stereo stops working, “They all do that.” Whew. For a minute there, I was starting to think this particular Saab was a piece of crap.
That it’s not uncommon to have the ABS and Stability Control sensors replaced within the first 5000 miles. The stereo at 10000 miles. And the steering sytem replaced at 24000 miles.
That after a couple thousand miles, the dash rattles when you go over a bump. The headliner squeaks as you go over uneven road surfaces.
And when you get so tired of being blown off by Saab USA customer service, renting your own transportation because all the loaners are gone, and waiting in the service area at your Saab store for “just another ten minutes, sir,” that you decide to trade the car…
It’s depreciated from 32 grand to 11 grand trade-in value. In 18 months.
So yeah. GM has made Saab the most unique car in all of auto land. Unfortunately for me.
I’m with the folks asking for Eco Volvos. Volvo already hypes their commitment to the environment (there’s a chapter in the owners manual. Really.) Ford has a hybrid drivetrain (Escape) and Volvo has biofuel engines (E and B) so let’s see some of that in the US. Before VW does it. And Audi. And everybody else.
Ford NEEDS to keep Volvo. They have a great history and wonderful name association.
Is that not the misguided reason Ford purchased Volvo Autos in the first place! What has it gotten Ford or Volvo? Nothing.
Simply put Volvo’s day in the sun has come to an end. In reality folks did not like the Volvo brand enough to not forgo buying a less expensive yet better value Acura or tossing out a few more coins for a BMW.
Honesty is safety that big of a selling point for a brand? The way I see the vast majority of people look at auto motive safety in two ways; there are safe cars and there are cars that have horrible reputations. By that I mean most folks will consider a Toyota as safe as a BMW and as safe as a Ford until they see a news story or hear a personal one stating otherwise.
I see many people talk up the virtures of Volvo yet I see very few comments about the negatives as though there were not many. At the end of the 1980s with Volvo you had the choice of an underpowered NA 4cyl, an underpowered NA v6, or a peaky turbo 4cyl. This in contrast to all of the Silky smooth and relatively powerful v6 engines that were coming out of Japan at that time installed in equally reliable yet far less expensive cars. Once folks began to learned that that $18,000 v6 Maxima was more reliable, used less gas, had far more features and options, handled rather well, yet could still be had for about the same as a crank windowed 240gl the writing was on the wall in the US marketplace.
Oh, almost forgot about that live axle in the back!
Domestic Hearse and I have apparently lived through the same Saab story. My wife and I will never own another Saab, and will advise our friends who ask to not buy a Saab. Every manufacturer turns out a lemon on occassion, but Saab’s customer service department is the worst I have experienced in the automobile business. After our 2002 9-5 Wagon spent several weeks in the local service department Saab’s customer service offered $1,000 toward the purchase of a new Saab; exactly the same they offered any customer trading in a used Saab.
Our 2007 Volvo V50 has been trouble free.
My experience with Saab dealers, Customer Service (and yes the cars) has been quite different, if not totally opposite to what fotobits and Domestic Hearse have described. I don’t deny that there will be customers of any brand that will have horror stories, but I’m not going to quit driving our Saabs or any other car based on what gets posted on a site such as this.
bill h,
Wanna buy mine? Give ya a heck of a deal! 24k, always garaged and doctor driven.
Cadaver tested.
New brakes. New CD changer. Exciting interior light display…
“Exciting interior light display”
I lol’d pretty hard at that.
Cars are becoming increasingly homogenized. It’s probably natural evolution–certain things just work well, like aerodynamics, and safety and car companies are getting better at producing them. Volvo and Saab are victims. I suppose you can also blame globalization to some degree. There are more competitors.
GM is done raping SAAB so they should sell them to the Chinese or Indians. Ford is almost done raping Volvo then they should sell them to the Chinese or Indians. Still, Volvo has more market value than SAAB.
I was surprised that such a socialist country Sweden, would allow a foreign companies to purchase two key employers in their economy.
Kjc
I think both Volvo and Saab had to be combined with bigger players. Given the costs to develop new cars and the economies of scale involved neither would have been viable as independent automakers.
The global economy is a two way street.
The Truck and Heavy equipment part of Volvo is still very much a Swedish company that has “borged” Mack Trucks. The current Mack lineup is almost entirely badge engineered Volvos.
It’s not the fact that GM didn’t allow Saab to be creative that’s the problem for me… it’s the fact that GM stopped Saab building good cars.
They took a brand renown for building solid, well engineered cars that were great to drive and managed to convert it to a company knocking out bland under engineered cars.
Volvo’s window for building a minivan passed at least 5 years ago – the Japanese competition has just gotten way too tough with the high-end Odyssey and Sienna trim levels, and the new DC vans have some nice features as well. The profit margin on vans has shrunk due to competition and unpopularity as they were edged out by SUV’s, then CUV. Volvo’s management had the foresight to go for the low-volume money with the XC90 well before the Ford acquisition.
The MB R-class is currently in that market space and not doing well for many reasons besides those humungous rear doors, and it’s built in the low cost USofA.
kjc117 :
May 8th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I was surprised that such a socialist country Sweden, would allow a foreign companies to purchase two key employers in their economy.
Sweden is a very free economy, and not socialistic either.
Sweden’s economy is 70.4 percent free, according to our 2008 assessment, which makes it the world’s 27th freest economy. Its overall score is 1.4 percentage points higher than last year, reflecting improvements in trade freedom and financial freedom. Sweden is ranked 14th out of 41 countries in the European region, and its overall score is higher than the regional average.
http://www.heritage.org/index/country.cfm?id=Sweden
Sweden has been a monarchy since around year 1000 and is now run by a center right government.
Wage taxes are high, but that does not hinder the selling and buying of companies.