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I own a Viggen and an old 900. My brother is in the market for a new car and my devotion to Saab's piqued his interest in a 9-3. I joined him on a test drive this weekend, and we split the driving duties. Here are my impressions:
The Good.
(i) TIGHT chassis and handling. Saab has finally made it into the new millenium w/r/t handling. This car handles about 10 times better than my Viggen, with a ride quality that bests the Viggen by a long shot. Exit ramp cloverleafs were a cinch, no body roll even at 60mph around the ramp and no tire sqeal (and no alarm when the brake fluid drops below the sensor because of the centrifugal force, like in my Viggen - ;-) ).
(ii) Nice seats. The seats in the Linear are really substandard for what Saab has traditionally done with its seats -- which is second only to Volvo for comfort.
(iii) Butter smooth engine. It really does feel like a six in terms of smoothness. Engine has some punch, but obviously not like my Viggen. No torque steer.
The Bad.
(i) Dash is too busy. Too much stuff going on there, and too much fiddling to do simple things like turn on the stereo.
(ii) While most interior stuff is good quality, the door sills, center panels and stalks really felt cheapo.
(iii) This is an issue personal to me, but I'm 6'6" with a longish torso and, as with the 9-5, my head is planted squarely against the edge of the sunroof opening. It looks like I won't be able to buy any new Saabs because the designers didn't see fit to give the car an extra inch of headroom. :(
(iv) Not much Saabness to the car. That's a good and bad, I guess. It's many orders of magnituide better a car than the old 9-3, but just doesn't have the magic feel.
(v) THE PRICE. Outrageous price for this car. $32K to start, a few options and you're up into $36K on the MSRP with destination. You tell me -- would you buy a $36K Vector over a $37K Volvo S60R? No freaking way. Not a chance. For the extra $1K you get 90 more hp, 75 more lb-ft of torque, AWD, and turbo fun. Hell, I might take the 9-5 Aero at a few grand more over the 9-3 Vector at 36K.
The price on this car needs to come down for it to be anything more than an interesting but noncompelling alternative to cars like the 3 series, A4, G35, etc. I always thought Saab had to hit a home run with the new 9-3 to announce its presence and draw sales from the cutthroat competition in the $25-35K range. I think they almost, but not quite, got there. They're trying to stretch a triple into a home run.
BOTTOM LINE: Very nice car that I would consider if the headroom wasn't so tight for me, but for $33K, there are a ton of very nice cars and even a few exceptional cars out there.
Side note: My brother also tried out a Mazda 6i with the V6 right after the Saab test drive, and he frankly doesn't see how the Saab is worth $10K more than the 6. I haven't driven the 6, although I have heard similar things from others. I think Saab needs to start figuring that out too.
posted by 208.200.185...
, Tue, 29 Apr 2003 18:40:13
, Tue, 29 Apr 2003 16:25:58, Tue, 29 Apr 2003 13:29:22, Tue, 29 Apr 2003 15:59:17
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