Last week the community here was tasked with providing advice to a guy named ‘Me’. He was deciding between the purchase of a red Saab 9-3 SportCombi, or a red Saab 9-5 SportCombi.
46 comments were submitted, so naturally ‘Me’ felt compelled to provide some follow-up.
Consider yourself coming along for a complete ride through the purchase process.
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Saturday was my “visit the dealership” day.
As I moved to this region only in August ’08, I didn’t know where the next SAAB dealer was, or which is the best in the event there were more than one “near by”.
So last Monday I searched for a SAAB dealership though the SAAB site. OK, I’ve got 2 dealerships within a 65km radius and yes, I really mean that both dealerships are about 65km from home :-(. When I lived in Frankfurt, I had three or four dealerships near-by.
I chose one and scheduled a visit for Sat 31. On the telephone he couldn’t guarantee that I would find the cars I wanted to test drive. I tried to make a plan B with the other dealer, but it was clear on Saturday I would be driving 65km to a small dealership in a even smaller town.
The vendor was the son of the owner. The mother of the vendor kept us occupied with some coffee as we were waiting for him, and the only car in their showroom was a 9-3X TTiD FWD. Despite these small beginnings, it was not a mistake to come here.
They have been dealers for SAAB since 1984, and they want to stay with SAAB till the brand disappears. We had a nice talk about SAAB and the world.
He has said to me, Bob Lutz, as the 9-X BioHybrid was presented to the dealers, said to them: “Next year, you will have this car in your dealerships.”
We talked about the new 9-5, the fact that he was expecting the NG9-5SC not earlier than March ’11. That he had more customers asking for the 9-4x than for the 9-5. That some customers were preoccupied about the NG 9-5 being too big for their garage. That the price range of the NG9-5 SS would start at about 34.000 € (1.8t Linear). The price-list from “xigxag” seems quite realistic.
We talked about the engines available, and he said to me he needs the big diesel to get Audi and BMW customers into his showroom. GM had already presented the 2.9 V6 Diesel to the dealers around a year ago, and 4 or 5 months ago GM cancelled the engine. We also talked about the 190HP 2.0l TTiD engine; this engine has disappeared, even from the Opel catalogues.
We then stopped at an Aero-X poster he had and I said to him, I heard maybe they (K’segg) will build it as a halo car in small amounts, and he replied to me, he would know about customers who would not only be able to buy such a halo car (we both thought about a price tag similar to the 8C ) but would also be willing to do it.
Anyway, I’ve forgotten what I wanted to tell you about my decision.
- My son says the car has to be red.
- My wife says the car has to be a 9-5
- And I say the engine has to be a hirsch’ed 2.3t.
My wife wants to talk with her pillow about it, but if she gives the OK and my company does it also, then I will be driving a red 9-5SC by March.
But I am in a hurry as the dealer has to order the car before Christmas. SAAB will cease production by the end of March, and will not accept more orders for the 9-5SC after New Year.
And, the European Car Club (ACE) has a contract with SAAB that ends by the end of this Year. SAAB is offering a 30% discount to any member of the ACE, which makes it possible for me to Hirsch the car 🙂
Today I’ve driven a 9-3 TTiD MY ’09 and a rather old MY ’05 9-5 Wagon 2.3t (Hirsch’ed).
The 9-3 had the modern looks, but it is too small inside, or the centre console is too big. At least so says my wife.
I tried to compare both engines. The TTiD is a quite refined engine, you are quite fast (as in a small amount of time) really fast (as in high velocity), but you don’t notice it, so if you can accelerate to 200 kph fast, but you don’t notice, what’s the point in doing that?
On the other side the 2.3t was a little bit more rough, you had the sound, and because of this you feel much more the acceleration. And you reach the 200kph fast enough 🙂
The decision is taken, although I’m not sure about the rims. I will take one of the four “standard” griffin rims, but I don’t know which.
I still have some time to decide 😎
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