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I bought an '01 CPO'd 9-5 Aero about 2 years ago. I had looked at Saab's website where you could search on your ZIP code (+/- 200 miles) for available CPO's. It didn't take me long to figure out that I could type in ANY Zip code, and get a look at what was available around the country.
It was obvious that very similar CPO vehicles varied greatly in price according to geographic area. Dealers buy Saabs that come off lease as CPO candidates - so they're going to try to buy non-problematic cars. As I understand it, once a CPO car has been sold, the certifying dealer must pay for the first year of covered repairs, regardless of what Saab dealer does them.
In my case, I wanted a low mileage CPO that had NOT lived in a snowy part of the country. I am in western NY state, and at the time there wasn't much in the way of CPO Aero's in my region. I found one in Boston via the Saab site, but the dealer was an idiot: he knew I was a long-time Saab enthusiast and a serious potential customer, but I wasn't about to spend the $$ to fly to Boston if I didn't think the deal was worth it. He stonewalled me on price and I just laughed it off. (His sales mgr did call me back a week later to haggle, but it was too late for him by then - I had found another car...) I eventually found my car, oddly enough, 90 miles down the road in Buffalo, NY. The car had lived its life in southern Maryland (traced it with the Iris report) until the dealer in Buffalo bought it at auction.
It was originally priced a bit high, IMHO, and by the time the winter came, it was just sitting there. I got a decent price, but the dealer (a brand new Saab franchise tacked onto a Caddy dealership) was not what I would call meticulous in detailing the car before the sale. I had to back him up against the metaphoric wall with Saab for my spare key/remote, which he didn't include with the car. But the black 5-speed Aero with 28K on it looked like a winner to me - and it has proved to be a wonderful vehicle.
The clean Iris report didn't get much added to it in my first two years of ownership: a DIC (covered anyhow by Saab's warranty) a bunch of light bulbs, a trunk wiring harness and that's about it. The finish on the BBS wheels started to corrode while still under warranty, but Saab said not covered by CPO.
HTH
posted by 206.148.1...
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