My neighbor got his teen daughter a similar Saab several years ago, and she's still driving it. Got her all the way thru college and grad school and she's never replaced it.
Good buy!
My neighbor got his teen daughter a similar Saab several years ago, and she's still driving it. Got her all the way thru college and grad school and she's never replaced it.
Good buy!
I'm seriously considering buying one of these as a DD. Any reason not to? Any other GRMers have any input On these things? Transmission glass or anything like that?
I am on my 2nd 2008 Saab 9-3 Sportcombi and both have been awesome cars. first car was at 158k and going strong when my wife totaled it. side impact and the structure held up very well not encroaching on her our our 14 month old so thats a win. we liked it so much we found a 2nd, the replacement was a lower mileage and slightly different color, now at 125k, both cars were 2.0T's with the 5 speed auto. The saabs played the roll of Family car until my wife needed to carry more than 2 kids and we got a van, then Saab became my DD. The Sportcombi's are good family cars because the rear door is square, makes getting kids in and out of rear-facing seats easier without bumping heads, like you would do in a sedan. Regarding issues, both cars had a faulty fuel gauge, seems to be a common issue and replacing the sender is an afternoon job for like $20, failure seems to be the sender stops working between full and 1/2 tank, then works again. Another common issue is the front springs fail, happened on both of my Saabs. first Saab just accepted it, replacement got new springs/struts at the beginning of covid lockdown. the engine is good, however there is a intake valve issue that happened over a range of cars, neither of mine seemed to be impacted so i don't actually know how wide spread this is and cars still around are either fixed or not impacted in my opinion. Transmission, there are some instances of hard shifting when the trans fluid gets old, car has a drain plug and a dipstick so grab a case of Mobile ATF3309, drop the 4 quarts out of the pan and replace a few times with a quick circulation run in between. I try to also do a 4 quart swap every other oil change or so as it makes sense. honestly, i recommend the 9-3's to anyone i know who is looking for a cheap and reliable car, one thing i will caution is get a 2nd key made if you only get one with the car, that can be a pain because most GM dealers wont do the programing any more so you will need to call around and figure out who will do it, if the key is lost or damaged several modules need to be re-placed and it ends up being about a $1200 repair, vs $100 for a key.
As I posted in the other thread we really like ours. I have just been living with the fuel sender issue and I finally broke down and ordered a Tech 2 clone but over all its really just been brakes and oil changes. I really want a manual SportCombi one of these days.
In reply to Aaron_King :
the fuel sender unit is easy to live with, we just re-set the trip odometer every fill up an knew to stop every 200ish miles. I eventually did the job on both cars in the driveway, honestly it was pretty simple just get the gas tank light because its awkward.
the SportCombi is awesome, my only complaint is the rear hatch isnt actually wide enough to fit a sheet of plywood, i think diagonally is like 47" - so close.
Im up in Michigan so i got some Toyo snow tires and have had no complaints for winter. for summer i picked up some 17's running some Firestone Fierhawk 500 (340 treadware summer tires) and that absolutely wakes the car up.
I just did the math and went through my mental list, we have owned the car for 4 years now. So far i did oil changes, brakes, serpentine belt/tensioner, sway bar links, and a wheel bearing. i also did shocks/struts/springs all around but honestly outside of the front springs braking off the bottom coil i could have skipped that or just did the springs.
In reply to xxsportscar :
That list of services and repairs is pretty typical of any car with 100k-plus miles, and yes broken springs are a MI thing.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:Note to self: right rear tire pressure low warning today. placard calls for 35 psi, my gauge says 31. Inflated to 35, warning went away. Posting this as T=0 for when/if it shows up again.
So it took 8 weeks and a cold morning for the low tire warning to come back. System said right rear, but all four checked at 30-31 psi. I set them all to the door placard value of 35 psi with ambient temp around 50F.
min other weirdness, mama says on two separate occasions the trunk lid has opened without being told to do so. And yesterday it happened to me. I haven't googled this yet. Anyone got experience with this?
I still really like this car. today she rolled 136k.
Can't help with the random trunk issue as I have a hatch. I get a reverse light failure issue in my gauge cluster at random but the lights work fine. I think I've read this is exclusively to wagons. Another random item is when you start getting frost on the window in the morning I occasionally get a auto headlight sensor fault warning but that goes away when the window clears up and it works just fine.
Decent weather today, with some snow predicted tomorrow, means winter tire swap.
Those are still great looking cars!
Still looking good! Idk about the trunk lid issue. I don't recall it ever happening to us. Though my son drove it for the last few years and he was not always the best at letting me know issues.
The trunk lid randomly popping open is a chronic Chevy Cruze problem. Maybe GM used the same parts on these? I don't know the root cause, sorry, but hopefully that helps your search for a solution.
The 9-3 continues to be a great car for us. Mama told me the Service Due light came on a couple days ago, so I got to enjoy a bit of MI winter sunshine today changing engine oil and filter, cabin air filter, and engine air filter.
The only noteworthy / unusual thing I found was a small rodent nest under the fuel rail. Cleared that out and it's all good.
She's just a few miles short of 140k and still going strong. She's been such a good car, I even ran her through the car wash.
Thanks again to GRMer cdowd for being a great PO. 10/10, would buy from him again for sure!
Thank you! I am glad you are still enjoying the car.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Are you showing us that you have a bad tire sensor?
In reply to John Welsh :
inadvertently, yes. my focus was the odometer, we've put on something like 9k miles since purchase.
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Not participating in the matched numbers like the BMW? The speedo implies it could be done but that seems rather optimistic.
In reply to John Welsh :
not on winter tires!
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
You nailed the 000 part.
Saab continues to surprise and delight. TIL the rear seat headrest height is adjustable!
Unscheduled pit stop today.
Mama called from the side of M14, said "I hit a pothole and now there's a scraping noise but I don't see anything dragging." So I traded cars with her on the shoulder of the road and cautiously drove home with my diagnostic ears on. Within 10 feet I diagnosed upper shock mount on right rear.
It's obviously been cracked for a while, as there's a ton of aluminum oxide on the fracture surfaces. Yes, plural. Get some of this:
FCP Euro has them for $25 apiece, and with $23 for the fastest shipping I'll have them in hand on Th 6/2. Same part left hand and right hand, so I ordered two because if the right one's broken the left can't be far behind.
And the hits keep coming, LOL. Shock feels a little soft, like I can compress it against the ground and it takes 5 seconds to fully expand. So, throw in a pair of rear shocks. And hey, these pads look a little thin. Compare to other side. Yep, caliper issue. Torn piston boot, piston won't spin back, text my buddy at Centric since they list remans. Hoping I can get a nice insider discount.
Here we are 6PM on day 3 of the long weekend and I haven't worked on MonZora yet.
Hang in there, the good news is that once you're done, you shouldn't have to worry about it for a while. I recently went under our Rav4 to fix a rattling heat shield, and ended up replacing the entire rear subframe, parking brake cables, springs, backing plates, axle seals, rear diff breather, rear lower control arms, and both rear hubs/wheel bearings. It seems like the curse of living on the rust belt. The only things in that list that weren't replaced because the old one was broken or rusted away was the axle seals and the hubs/wheel bearings. Rust makes every project an adventure around here!
In reply to dj06482 (Forum Supporter) :
Because, you know, "while you're in there" is different in the rust belt. 
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