MODERN Saabs- any good??

[Panda Flan Attack]

Well I have a 2004 9-5 and I think it's great, if thirsty.

[SiC]

The slant 4 Triumph was a pretty good design, just very poorly manufactured.

Not sure I can agree to that!

Water pump or even distributor seizing will stop the oil pump from pumping. Also that pump location at the top of the engine isn't the best of ideas given if the water level drops, it runs dry and stops pumping. Then you get chain stretch as the chains are so long. After one of those causes you problems, you then need to replace the head gasket. Except you can because the head has seized on. If you're lucky it hasn't, the funny angled head bolts have a good chance of snapping off on you.

All this wasn't a problem when the engines were ten a penny and cheap. Now they're pretty expensive and rare.

[BenHar]

The slant 4 Triumph was a pretty good design, just very poorly manufactured.

Not sure I can agree to that!

Water pump or even distributor seizing will stop the oil pump from pumping.

I never saw or heard of one doing that though.

It made changing the pump quite easy (which you had to do fairly often because they were poorly made).

Head bolts were OK as long as they had ben soaked over night in oil before fitting. Pretty sure that was in the assembly manual.

Stupid thing on the Sprint (may have been the same on the 8 valve too?) was using the head bolts to hold the cam in.

Ben

[AutoshiteBoy]

Well I have a 2004 9-5 and I think it's great, if thirsty.

We are all over the moon for you.

[SiC]

Well I have a 2004 9-5 and I think it's great, if thirsty.

We are all over the moon for you.

We get it. You don't like Saabs.

[AutoshiteBoy]

No, not at all. I just worked for GM....

I've owned a 99 9-3 2.0 5dr and it was alright actually.

And if you look back, I'm eyeing up an 1998 9-5 3.0V6 auto, but I think it'll be too salty for me.

[Nibblet]

Hummm. Well, I have not owned lots of prestige cars, in fact I've not owned that many cars at all. I do like my 9000 though. It is nearly 30 years old and has covered nearly 200k mls, yet there are no rattles and everything still works. They do not 'handle' especially well, however I do not frequent any race tracks and would like to keep my licence for the time being. I prefer the 9000 to the W124 I owned, that felt... dated, like an admittedly very new 1980s car. The 9000 feels like a thoroughly modern fwd 90s car, in fact it represents the apogee of car design to me. After the mid 90s I think most cars went a bit....strange. Weird, star trek styling, unnecessary, even unpleasant controls and excessive electronic gizmos.
No, I like my elderly 200k ml Saab, I like a slush box, I like tyres that have side walls, I like big windows and upright windscreens. I like big chunky switches that 'clunk' as you operate them. I like wide, soft seats and analogue dials. I like to have suspension on my car that makes it possible to get to work with an intact spinal column.
I shall continue to chuck a few hundred quid at it each year until the grot gets too bad I guess

[Nibblet]

Our A4 pissed all over the 9-3 in cornering, especially with the S-Line suspension setup. Its surprisingly neutral setup, at least that possibily is what the traction control is doing. Slides rather than understeers. The suspension and chassis setup is far more capable than what the engine can provide. Steering feel is pretty good considering what the car is and not overly assisted. I believe the facelift did away from the hydraulic system that ours has and doesn't quite offer as much.

However in terms of ride comfort, the Saab was far superior. I'm not even talking about our A4 at 200k vs the Saab at the time. When I had the 9-3, my parents had the A4 when it was much fresher. Even my mum noticed how much more supple the suspension was over the A4. The Saab had the much lamented Sports suspension too.

Having gone from an RX8 at the time, I really enjoyed the relax driving experience from the 9-3. You could buzz along in comfort and not feel the need to corner hard into every turn. It actually slowed me down a lot as a driver and mellowed me out.

The traction control system did a pretty good job on the Saab as well. I always likened it to be designed for the travelling salesman foot. I.e. booting when cornering but the computers still kept the car settled.

Interior wise it's not fair to compare as completely different generations apart. The fair comparison would be to the B6 and B7, which were similar age. Having driven and travelled in a B7 and B6s, I can't say it was an order of magnitude better than the 9-3. Still suffered from the same plastic wear and degradation that most premium cars did.

Yeah an Audi like that is from a different era. The Saab up to and including the 9000 (and the Thema and others for that matter) is a type of car that simply doesn't exist any more, for people who virtually don't exist (like me).
I have barely progressed to owning a mobile phone so a 1990s Saab is a very complex, prestigious concept to me
From a layman's perspective, and I am a layman here, cars from the early 2000s are really a new mode of transport to what came before, such is the level of computing power they have, operating suspensions, engines, gearboxes. To me they are not really cars, the last cars having been built before OBD2 appeared.

[paulplom]

Could you not spend a good couple of hundred and get it tiptop? Better the devil you know and all that.
Cars have always made me irrational with money.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I don’t own a car with an EML. I only have one with a catalytic converter and I’ve replaced it with a £59 ceramic one to hopefully deter scum from stealing it.