9-5 3.0 v6 TiD Vector.
Discussion
Congrats on the purchase……oh, and good luck
I bought one in July 2009. It was a 2004 ‘54’ plate with 80k on the clock and full service history. Despite reading a few horror stories on the net I still went ahead and bought it for £5k from a local dealer that had taken it in and wanted to move it on quick. It was a great car to drive, with decent amounts of power and torque and almost perfectly judged gear ratios, although the ‘box itself was a bit clunky. Thankfully when on the move you can trundle about almost everywhere in 4th and 5th gear. They are also brilliant in the snow. That big heavy diesel engine helps enormously when trying to find grip in the white stuff, even when running normal tyres like Uniroyal Rainsports, but if you fit winters only the deepest drifts will stop you. Economy wise mine regularly averaged 37-40mpg, with mid-forties possible on a leisurely cruise.
Problems I had with mine? Well, not many….kind of….but I’ll come to that later. Does yours have the self-levelling Xenons? If it does then watch out for the sensors failing as they are not very well protected under the car. The orange warning light will appear on the dash, and the lights will drop to their lowest setting after they go through their start-up self-levelling procedure, which is a right pain at this time of year as I found out when mine went on the blink and only lit up the road a few feet in front of the car! I have no idea how much it costs to replace the sensors as I just had mine manually adjusted to the right height and then left them alone. Other issues I had were mainly electrical. The rear parking sensors started playing up just before I sold it, beeping every time I selected reverse, and the aircon temp display lost some of its pixels and a couple of bulbs went behind the speedo and rev counter. Overall though in nearly 3 years of ownership it was a pretty cheap car to run………… right up to the point when the bl**dy ‘coolant fluid low’ warning appeared (with 122k showing on the clock). I topped it up and all was well for about 6 weeks, then the ‘I’m thirsty, please give me a drink of water’ warning appeared again. Uh oh!.....yep, the head gasket(s) had gone. By the time I’d decided what to do with the car it had developed a terrible drinking problem, requiring a top up every 2-3 days. In the end I sold it to a mechanic who had the time and the resources to do a home repair.
If you’re not already I member I can thoroughly recommend joining the UKSaabs forum. There’s a wealth of info on the 3.0tid engine, including a photographic head gasket rebuild (which hopefully you won't need
)
I bought one in July 2009. It was a 2004 ‘54’ plate with 80k on the clock and full service history. Despite reading a few horror stories on the net I still went ahead and bought it for £5k from a local dealer that had taken it in and wanted to move it on quick. It was a great car to drive, with decent amounts of power and torque and almost perfectly judged gear ratios, although the ‘box itself was a bit clunky. Thankfully when on the move you can trundle about almost everywhere in 4th and 5th gear. They are also brilliant in the snow. That big heavy diesel engine helps enormously when trying to find grip in the white stuff, even when running normal tyres like Uniroyal Rainsports, but if you fit winters only the deepest drifts will stop you. Economy wise mine regularly averaged 37-40mpg, with mid-forties possible on a leisurely cruise.
Problems I had with mine? Well, not many….kind of….but I’ll come to that later. Does yours have the self-levelling Xenons? If it does then watch out for the sensors failing as they are not very well protected under the car. The orange warning light will appear on the dash, and the lights will drop to their lowest setting after they go through their start-up self-levelling procedure, which is a right pain at this time of year as I found out when mine went on the blink and only lit up the road a few feet in front of the car! I have no idea how much it costs to replace the sensors as I just had mine manually adjusted to the right height and then left them alone. Other issues I had were mainly electrical. The rear parking sensors started playing up just before I sold it, beeping every time I selected reverse, and the aircon temp display lost some of its pixels and a couple of bulbs went behind the speedo and rev counter. Overall though in nearly 3 years of ownership it was a pretty cheap car to run………… right up to the point when the bl**dy ‘coolant fluid low’ warning appeared (with 122k showing on the clock). I topped it up and all was well for about 6 weeks, then the ‘I’m thirsty, please give me a drink of water’ warning appeared again. Uh oh!.....yep, the head gasket(s) had gone. By the time I’d decided what to do with the car it had developed a terrible drinking problem, requiring a top up every 2-3 days. In the end I sold it to a mechanic who had the time and the resources to do a home repair.
If you’re not already I member I can thoroughly recommend joining the UKSaabs forum. There’s a wealth of info on the 3.0tid engine, including a photographic head gasket rebuild (which hopefully you won't need
)
Bonefish Blues said:
twizellb said:
Thanks for you advice pablo
Its not fitted with xenons(i think).
Still really liking it though,on the subect of lights can the lenses be polished as the are cloudy from road debri?
Yep -join UKSaabs Forum & search and you'll find lots of advice of varying usefulness Its not fitted with xenons(i think).
Still really liking it though,on the subect of lights can the lenses be polished as the are cloudy from road debri?
Very knowlageable and helpful.
Thanks
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