[JMarkert]

I thought all that stuff was already in place, installed on the car when it was built.

I bet it's not. We north americans only got the plush models with most of the options. I think the europeans were able to get some of their options one by one.

Given that you need to get your dealer involved for the Tech II part, I would suspect that an aftermarket alarm might be the cheaper option, even if you could get the SAAB parts used. You might check electronics sites in the us to see what's available for do it yourself aftermarket stuff. www.crutchfield.com and www.bestbuy.com might have something affordable. I don't know whether they'd ship to Estonia or not though.

 

[JMarkert]

I think it's all marketing and image. Here SAAB's, Volvo's, Merc's, and Beamers are sold as "luxury" or "near luxury" cars. I was in Switzerland a few weeks ago and rode around in a Volvo that felt like it could have been made by hyundae in the '80's. Ok, I'm exaggerating a bit, but this thing had plastic seats (although it did seem to have ACC). The US and Canada get the options that would make our cars fit into the "near luxury" category. No 2.0 engines or deleted A/C's for us.

One thing I did notice - the RDS system is pretty cool. It's a system that interupts your radio or cd to give you local "emergency" traffic info. It was in German, so I had no clue what it was saying, but it's still pretty cool.