After replacing all the rubber on the front end (except rack), and still getting vibration a forum member (can't remember sorry) mentioned his loose nuts at the top of the struts under the bonnet. sure enough, this eliminated the horrid rattle... however i think that this rattle has caused something in the steering column to wear more than it should.

has oneone stripped it down? looking at the EPC it doesn't look too bad, although these things have a habit of going from bad to worse. Last time i took it to an indie (prior to me nipping up the strut mounts) they said it was quite a big (read - expensive) job to strip it all down. He couldn't tell me if the main area of movement was at the top end of the column (which epc diagram could mean rubber bush replacement), or where it dissappears into the floor (epc piccy shows lots of CV joints).


any thoughts or prior experience?

Saab9000.com/forums/index.html has a section on "Procedures" then subsection "Suspension and Steering"
then subsubsections "Tightening the steering column adjuster" and "Replacing the steering rack bushes", among others.
Hope one of these can help you.
Saab9000.com also has a section on "Forums" in which Saabscene gets the only mention.
Cheers
bc109