Reliability of 2002 Saab 9-5 ARC?

Question

I'm looking at purchasing a 2002 Saab 9-5 ARC, and I've received mixed advice regarding the reliability of these cars in general. I realize that because it’s a somewhat uncommon foreign car, it will be more expensive and time consuming to repair. As I said, some people have told me these are good cars, and the downside is that when they do need repair, it’s more expensive. Others have told me that Saabs are prone to problems, and are expensive to repair on top of that. The latter is my concern. Good cars or not so good – that’s my question?

Answer 1

Heather, as a SAAB Master Tech for 16+ years allow me to offer you this advise if I may. The year and model you are contemplating purchasing is in my humble opinion one of the LAST good years to own in the SAAB line. Reasons, you still are buying for all intent and purpose a SAAB. Yes GM owns them but the power train is still Swedish, made in Sweden and engine managment systems are 80% SAAB. In this year range, 2000 thru 2003 stay with the 9-5 only. The 9-3 2.0L turbo motor has serious faults that you do not need. And of course under no circumstance buy the V-6 models of any year, you do not need the expense of ownership there. Also have the prospective purchase inspected by a knowledgable tech that you trust. I can not stress this enough. GM dumped over 14,000 lease return cars and factory buy-backs on the market recently and most have been at best, poorly maintained. Have your tech do a compression check and pull the valve cover off the engine to check for sludging. The engines compression should be equal or at least within 10% of each other highest to lowest readings. Also the compression should be within 10% of new engine specs. If the engine is sludged, pass this car by, you will not have a good experience with it I assure you. On the topic of sludge. If you find a car that passes muster we recommend the following as to oil changes. First, you do not need to go the expense of FULL synthetic oils in your car. Use a GOOD quality SEMI synthetic oil and follow these guidelines as to changing it. IF, your daily commute is of sufficiant distance that your car reaches normal operating temp for at least 20 minutes, change your oil every 4000 miles. If not, change your oil every 3000 miles. The reason, oil has to reach 350+ degrees temp to break down and fail. If it does you have so many other problems that oil is the last one. Oil does however get contaminated. Mostly from moisture and unburned fuel, this due to short cold engine trips because the engine never gets hot enough to purge these contaminats from the oil. These contaminants form acids that will litterally eat your engine bearings. The use of a good additive, I like BG products MOA additive, will keep these contaminants from doing their dirty work but it is still no substitute for regular oil changes. These are the top recommends we tell our customers every day. There are a few more and if you wish to contact me about the rest feel free to do so. In closing I will add this. The above, while they concern your pending SAAB purchase, you can apply to any car you ar thinking of getting involved with. They will keep your car alive for many a year no matter what you buy. Just a fun note, one of our customers holds the SAAB mileage record with his 1986 SAAB 9000 turbo. He has 710,000 miles, documented, on the original engine and turbo. I will add that his maintainance file in my computor is 39 pages long just listing service dates. He is trying to hit 1,000,000 miles and will most likely make it. Hope this gives you some help in your search. I Bid You Peace, Al.

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Reliability of 2002 Saab 9-5 ARC?
I'm looking at purchasing a 2002 Saab 9-5 ARC, and I've received mixed advice regarding the reliability of these cars in general. I realize that because it’s a somewhat uncommon foreign car, it will be more expensive and time consuming to repair. As I said, some people have told me these...

Answer 3

2002 Saab 9-5

Answer 4

Well, I had an 03 9-3 Vector for about 7 months before I traded it. I had to take the car into the shop so many times it was embarrassing. In fact, I opened a ticket with Saab's customer service center about some electrical problems back in July. It's almost January and the ticket is still unresolved.

Of course, keep this in mind: My 03 was the redesign using GM platform and more GM parts than ever before, so there was a big source of problems. Your model is different and is a year older, so I don't know how much GM influence would be in it.

All in all, I would never go with another Saab. The cars look nice and were once well built but not any more. They are now little more than a GM built in Sweden instead of Mexico.

Answer 5

I have info on where you can obtain more detailed information.
SaabCentral.com is a forum dedicated to such questions. I own 5 Saab 900's. The major issue with these cars ( and mostly any car) is preventive maintenance. If you simply note changes as your ownership progresses, then remedy these changes. The condition of the vehicle will remain new.
Generally speaking my older Saabs have been very reliable.
Good is a very relative term. Yes they have been good cars, to me.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

consumer reports says NO GO! i was gonna get a 9-3 and looked at the track record, too bad, nice looking cars and pretty cheap. of course, if you know how to work on them and it's cheap-go for it.