1999 SAAB 9-3 SE from North America - Comments

It is only by chance browsing on anything related to SAAB 93 SE 1999 that I stumbled on this page. I live in London (UK) and bought mine only 2 years ago. it has clocked now about 96000 miles and runs fantastic! I am very happy with my old banger. I was horrified to read all those stories on engine ceasing, sludge, etc and wonder how you got on in the end.

Oh dear, I wish I'd come across this sooner. I thought it was either the fault of the bushfires or the fault of the company servicing the car. The engine of my 2001 Saab 9-3 soft top seized at around 60,000 km and they tried to tell me it was lack of service.

Now to my dismay it seems there was a costly design flaw that the company and dealer were hiding from me. I suffered hugely because I couldn't do without the car, but could not afford the repairs either - went into a very bad financial state as a result. It cost me $AUD12,000 for a new motor. The funny thing is, at the following service the mechanic told me the sump was full of sludgy oil. So I don't know what went on.

Also had to buy a new sid because the one in the car broke. Seems Saab has a lot to answer for.

I've still got the car because it's the most comfortable car I've owned and it won't be replaced until more fuel efficient cars get cheaper and faster.

Like many people who posted on this blog, I am the proud owner of a Saab 93 whose engine has no compression. Zero. Saab HQ turned me down for assistance and the dealer wants a $1000 to tear down the engine so they can tell me what exactly the cause may be. Is there a cheap way to determine if oil sludge is the issue? What is a car like this worth to a junk dealer? It's a 2001 Saab 93 SE with 98000 miles that is otherwise in great condition.

Hi! I have read through many of these comments and am horrified by most of them. I however have been pleased to see a few people happy with their Saab. These have been owners of 1999 SE's. My boss would like to sell me his 199 SE Convertible. It is in excellent condition and he has had to do minor repairs to it over the last 3 years. I know he has replaced the long piece when you open the hood where everything connects. It has 115,000 miles on it and he is asking $5,000.00 is this a really bad thing to do? I am not sure if the issues you have all listed exist in the newer Saab's or if I should be leary. I have a college student that will be driving it.

Thanks for any help...

I have a 1999 9-3 base that I bought in 2002 with 30,000 miles for $15,000. I now have 125,000 miles on the car with no major breakdwns other than being stranded one time from di cassette. Repairs and maintenance are very expensive - about $1500 per year average, but still so much less than a car payment. I go to an independent mechanic who only does saab. I guess I'm one if the lucky ones. I plan on driving this car into the ground. Great car, nice looking, fun to drive, massive cargo area, safe, great seats, unique.

I think $5K is a good price for a 99 SE, assuming all the maint has been properly done. Also, Check when it was manufactured, in the beginning half or later half of the year. The ones manufactured in the later half of 1998 (which were sold as 99s) were built using the B205 engine, which is an OK engine, but its best to get one with the B204 engine, which is the original Saab H engine, and those were used in all the 9-3s manufactured in Jan through April of 1998, they were also 99 models. That engine is bullet proof and doesn't have the oil sludge issues like the B205 engine.However, even the sludge issue can be resolved with proper maintenance. I have a 99 9-3SE with the B204 engine and High output turbo, I have done ONLY routine maintenance, and I drive it rough, and Its been super reliable, even now with 152,000 plus miles!

I have owned a Saab for over a year. I am 17.

I change the oil. I do not take it to a shop because I do not trust anyone but myself dealing with my car, unless it is a big problem.

I have changed the oil every 3 months because that is what I have been told to do, so anybody complaining about why their Saab has gunk or problems relating to oil changes, it is not the car, it is your unwillingness to pay for SYNTHETIC oil, not going in to get an oil change regularly, or just being lazy. Do not blame the car.

I love my car and I take good care of it. It is a 1999 Saab 93 SE. Do not blame the car, blame yourself.

I also have a Saab 9-3 SE 1999. It's a fantastic car regardless of what I've seen on here. I have had the car several years with only minimal issues, which were maintenance related. I drive the car like a race car, change the oil every 4 to 5K, have never had a sludge issue and I have 160K on this car. I do know that mine has the B204 engine which is the same as the older 900 models but with upgrades, and these engines are bullet proof!

I own a 2003 9-3 with the 205hp 2 liter turbo.

My 9-3 has been a fine reliable car, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy another.

I know plenty of other very satisfied Saab owners, some who have put well over 100k miles on their Saabs.

I think it is a shame that Saab may not survive, now that GM is having so much difficulty.

I own a '99 9.3 SE with 85k on it. I found this web site the other day and was shocked to find so many engine failures.

I have owned a '74 '99, Sonnett, '88 900, '89 9000, '94 900, and '97 900 turbo, prior to my current car. I like Saab for the performance and the fact that once they leave the car lot, the value drops like a rock. Having owned all the above mentioned Saabs; they, like many other cars, are not perfect.

I have used Walmart 5-30 full synthetic or Mobil 1 and good oil filters, and changed every 2-4k miles with the occasional use of Marvel. I also change trans fluid every engine oil change. Changed the oil today and flushed the pan with mineral spirits and drained into a clear container due to all of the input from this site. Found some soft deposits, but no hard carbon deposits (the stuff you find when the oil is burned).

I plan to drive this car as I have all the others; with no mercy.

If you have a Saab in the Bay area with a smoked engine, I may be a buyer.

Have a 99 9-3 series turbo and it won't start. It is not the battery. The key froze up a while back, but was okay after we warmed it up. Any suggestions?

We bought a 2000 SAAB 9 3 used with 30k miles. I won't go through my long tale of woes, but now at 90K they are saying I need a new engine because of oil sludge, and I use synthetic oil. I've read many of the posts, with very few getting any satisfaction from SAAB. Monday will be my first call, but what have most people done?

Start praying and get out while you still can!

OK - I have a 2001 Saab 95 Aero Wagon - engine light kept coming on, take it to dealer, nothing in the computer, engine light comes on, take it to dealer, nothing in the computer about 5 times.

Last time in, engine is toast at 60K.

Changing the oil at 10K is absolutely ridiculous for this car - it simply will sludge up and die at those intervals.

I went to war with Atlanta (where Saab has its center that deals with customers). I had all the receipts except one and they told me tough!! Not documented. I prepared a thorough, bound rebuttal (I had changed my own oil once - thus no receipt - they wanted the receipt for the oil I purchased.) Never talked to the same service person more than once even though they assign one person to handle your case.

The rebuttal, complete with pictures of the sludged up pan and the clogged oil pick up screen as well as text picking apart the service manual (BTW the local dealer was absolutely NO, that is NO help at all), along with my promise to go to court (and the package alone would have easily won a court case) made them change their decision after 3 months of dickering with them and I got a new short block.

You absolutely must change the oil on this car every 5,000 miles, especially with a turbo. The engineering is horrible. The catalytic converter sits right next to the oil pan. When you finish driving, the heat of the catalytic converter peaks (no air flow any longer) and it cooks the oil. This is not some gross accumulation of a black, gelatinous mass of gook, but a brown accumulation of cooked oil that, when it breaks up, the small pieces of hardened oil clogs the fine screen of the oil pick-up and that reduces the flow of oil to the engine parts - that's why the engine light keeps going off, and the fact that the engine management system is very limited, the reason for the frequent engine light is not saved to the computer.

Further, as pointed out by an astute member here, the PVC system is a disaster of lousy engineering and poor quality rubber. The many hoses involved in the Saab system, deteriorate and then collapse causing all the engine vapors to be contained in the engine rather than exhausted from the engine and burned in the pistons.

An American engine is probably one of the best in the world for reliability. We use relatively simple engineering that has been perfected over the years - no double overhead cams, just good old push rods. Look what Corvette has done. They routinely blow the doors in on cars costing 5 and 6 times more and have the latest and greatest engineering doo-dads.

Some of the complaining about Turbos though are not warranted. A turbo that lasts 100k miles has done its duty. Turbo's take a real punishment because they are expected to turn at very high rpms, and do it at incredibly high temperatures - putting a real challenge on its longevity.

Given the unfortunate engineering of this car - something that should have been fixed early in 2000, but wasn't, that Saab has stuck it to its customers is awful.

And the guy who said that this was just a problem that we Yanks have, and that they don't have problems in the UK is uninformed. The difference in Europe is that Saab dealt with the problem right away, made early changes to the oil change interval and paid to replace the engines. Saab America kept all these problems as secret as possible - many mechanics were unaware of the problem. So in Europe you just didn't have a lot of angry customers.

Every European car I have owned has had very significant maintenance problems (Peugeot, BMW, Volkswagen) - European cars have an unearned reputation and are way overpriced. Unfortunately Toyota has had an engine sludge problem as well which I don't know enough about to comment.

My next car will be a Cadillac CTS 4x4. This baby will blow the doors in of any BMW less than $100,000 on any road you care to compare them. Plus it has excellent service history and the price is right. I have a detailed discussion of my war with Saab on http://www.saabcentral.com/index.htm.

For those of you with Saabs with over 60K miles, I would counsel that you bite the bullet and have the pan lowered and cleaned - or suffer the consequences. If you love Saab I have a very nice 2001 Saab 9-5 Aero wagon, grey. It has the normal body scabs of a car of 75000 miles, but it does have a new short block - its for sale for $7000. (703 690 1942)

Ha, what a blast from the past this thread is. I found this board and this particular thread about the engine sludge issue a few years ago, the day before I bought a 1999 Saab 9-3 with a little under 80,000 miles on it. I saw the car with my parents at a little Saab dealership here in Maine, and my parents liked it and encouraged me to commit to buying it that day. (They wanted to have a nice safe car for their daughter to drive to school in Massachusetts in.) After finding out about this problem (on here), I balked. But the dealer assured me that the car had never had anything but synthetic oil in it. (He pulled out the oil pan to make sure, if I remember correctly, or something to that effect.) Other than replacing 2 ignition cassettes (d*$# buggers), I've never had a problem with this car. NEVER. My Dad changes the oil in it, every 5,000 miles--he's a little obsessive about it, he LOVES this car and would gladly take it off my hands! We always use Mobil 1. We never have one of these quacks at Jiffy-lube or whatever change it, we always do it ourselves (I'm learning, too). The key is SYNTHETIC OIL!! No cheap stuff allowed. As long as you stick to that rule, you'll be fine.

I LOVE this car, it's stylish, it's safe, and it's never given me any problems, aside from the annoying ignition cassettes. My whole family loves this creature so much that when my sister totaled the old family station wagon, my parents used the insurance money and bought ANOTHER one of these babies. THAT's commitment.

So I guess I'd like to say to anyone reading this thread who, like I was, is scared to buy a Saab 9-3, DON'T BE. Do your research, make sure yours has only used synthetic oil, and continue the habit once you take your new baby home. Odds are that you'll be fine.