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As much as I loved my Viggen for its character and uniqueness, you'll probably hate me for saying this but the car is very flawed....too much power for a chassis that can't even come close to handling it. That being said, it was great on the highway (apart from tramlining), amazing seats, and the practicality was fantastic.
The new 9-3 Aero is light years ahead in my book. The chassis for a front drive car is super stiff, can handle the power with virtually no torque steer at all, and the overall drivability is much improved. I find the handling to be absolutely superb, compared to the Viggen, whose ride was super harsh, yet should have had less body roll and better stability at the limit considering how firm the suspension was. One of the reasons I got rid of the Viggen (and got my 9-5 Aero wagon..which I also still have), was the torque/camber steer, which became overly frustrating to deal with. This is a personal opinion...some people find it entertaining...I found it to be a detriment to the car's performance and handling. In the new 9-3, you accelerate through corners, feel no torque steer, and having driven BMW 3 series as the de facto RWD car to compare it to, feel almost as good....
Steering is a little lighter in terms of feel, which I DON'T like, and the turning radius (at least for my Aero convertible) is much bigger, which I realized in my tight driveway the day I brought it home, and was quite surprised by.
So far, build quality seems outstanding, though some of the choices for plastics/carpets seem cheaper than the older cars. My floor mats have 800 miles on them and already look a year or two old...to me, a few extra bucks would make the car feel a bit more luxurious inside. However, if it rattles less in the long term, that's a more important issue in my book.
Overall, I feel the car is in a whole other class, from a driving dynamics perspective...the V6 is absolutely intoxicating...smooth, still has the turbo rush, great exhaust note, and I got 28mpg on a recent highway trip from LA to San Diego. My Viggen would get 31mpg, so that seems pretty OK in my book.
What do I miss the most about my Viggen? The 3rd gear acceleration...
I hope that helps!
Paul H.
'06 9-3 Aero converible
'03 9-5 Aero wagon
'91 900TC (MC yellow)
posted by 63.118....
, Fri, 3 Mar 2006 17:32:26, Fri, 3 Mar 2006 12:49:10
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