1999 SAAB 9-3 S from North America - Comments

I bought the car with around 70,000 + miles. My first 25K miles were maintance free. Then replaced the Idelor pulley. Realitively easy fix.

100K replaced Information Display

110K replaced DI Cassette

at 122K my problems began:

-A/C went bad. Replaced with new compressor $800 just for the part. I put it on, now AC only works when it wants to. I'm sure it is a bad sensor, but too lazy to try to find out about it so I still have no AC.

124K Water Pump and upper radiator hose.

134K Head Gasket ($1000 repair)

145K replaced DI Cassette again ($350 part)

150K replaced Idelor Pulley again and put new serpentine belt.

Owning this car has been a love hate relationship. It is so fun to drive. Handles beautifully and is super comfortable... more comfortable than my dad's buick. If you've ever driven a SAAB you'll know what I feel. You fall in love with it. You'll get tons of power out the turbo 4 cylinder and decent gas mileage. It is so quick and it will be a step down in power unless I jump into a V-8 which won't happen. I get 27 on the highway and 22 around town. The downside is they come with expensive repair bills. I've been lucky because I've done all the work myself except for the head gasket. I've worked on this car more than any car I've ever owned. It has voodoo electornics. I am constantly going through headlights and tailights and am always adjusting them. Half the time my airbag light and brake light comes on and my check engine light has been on since 90K. I would love to own a SAAB again, but I'm cautiously optomistic that I probably won't. Like I said, It's been love hate.

You've got a car which started giving a few issues from about 120K miles (193K km), you managed to make the water pump last THAT long?? The mechanical stuff you mentioned is about right for the mileage of many cars these days, including Japanese cars. US$1,000 for a head gasket job (which I'm sure will include shaving the head/block for warpage) is average to cheap, a friend had a Mitsubishi which cost 1.5 times that just to rectify for the same thing.

The electronics, let's face it -- almost any car these days with a dot-matrix panel will have the display stop operating properly in time, perhaps the older (but less attractive) normal LEDs are mor durable. The stereo -- no comment. But yeah, cars just aren't even DESIGNED (let alone built) the way the older ones were, when things were simpler, more expensive, but more durable.

I say you had a pretty good run! As I'm doing this comment, I can't see your original review, but you haven't mentioned an automatic transmission overhaul yet. All I can say is, you've gone from about 100K km to 192K km over a period of 5 years, and the mechanical problems are pretty much on par for mileage.

Oh yeah -- your aircon. A friend with a Mazda here has not bothered getting the aircon fixed because it would be worth more than the car now. I hope where you live doesn't make aircon too mandatory.