Saab 9-3 Buyers Guide - Which 9-3 to buy? What's the best year?

[Digger]

Every used car is a crap shoot and buying a Saab is no different than buying any other high end vehicle. Parts cost can be controlled with research, GM owned Saab for the last couple of decades, so the car has a large number of GM parts that are readily available and many of these parts can be purchased new for less than the price of the same used Saab part from a specialty salvage yard, if you can find the GM part number. Service can be pricy as GM controlled and still controls which GM stores can work on Saab and unless you plan to self maintain as much as possible, service could be a killer if you can't find an independent local Saab service center. As to the XWD reliability, price and service, think Cadillac and use your local independent Saab service location as much as possible.

[Mammoth863]

Thanks for the info. I do a lot of maintenance on my vehicles myself so if I can find my way around a Saab engine I should be fine in that aspect. I’ve also heard to avoid the 9-3 Turbo, any truth to that?

[Digger]

Have the 2.0t in my Sportcombi and it is the GM Echotech engine. For the most part rock solid, but the Saab ecm is different from the GM and the 07's got different fuel injectors and throttle body than the 03-06"s so that turbo has some engine issues that I don't have, but it also has a GM radio that isn't part of a fiber optic network and crudding up with carbon and working hands free phone operation is to me a much smaller irritation.

[100%Saab]

Auto Autopsy YouTube channel has a 2008 9-3 Turbo X purchased with 178,000 miles and MotionAutoTV YouTube channel has two 2008 9-3 Aeros which were totaled and restored with part cars. So a 9-3 V6 with this many miles can be maintained.