In My Humble Opinion
Mike finds an honest dealer and a knowledgeable specialist.
The other half calls it, Mike’s internet porn. Hang on though, before you get too excited, I am of course referring to the covert and private web browsing by candlelight of second-hand cars. Now cast your mind back a few months when I mentioned about the hassle of trying to sell my Volvo. Internet sales of trusty but over-the-hill jalopies bring out the worst in people – especially time wasters.
Can you send me more pictures? Would you consider swapping for some magic beans and a child’s trampoline? Or would you accept £250 and a Qualcast Concorde? All the aforementioned are just some of the moronic responses you get when trying to sell a car on-line these days. Suffice to say, in the end I totally became pee’d off and decided to keep the ruddy Volvo – if only to keep my sanity. That was, until, I got furloughed for three weeks and had too much time on my hands.
After a couple of weeks of keeping one eye on an episode of Minder and the other on Auto Trader via my ipad,
I noted a Saab 9-3 saloon being sold by a trader up the M1 in Bedfordshire, so I dropped him a call. The next day I was circumnavigating an eerily quiet M25 to go and view it. All the usual probing questions were asked beforehand and in next to no time I arrived at the premises that looked similar to the aftermath of the WW2 Luftwaffe blitz on Sheffield. In fairness the trader gave me an 85-90% accurate description of the car and despite it obviously needing some love pouring over it, the Saab was spot-on where it mattered.
Lack of propellant
With its fuel lamp glowing and the trip computer estimating the range to empty in metres, the trade plates were affixed, and the vendor sat in the back doing his best to socially distance himself. Pressing every knob and switch it became apparent there was a growing list of niggly faults a novice punter would have to spend a small fortune putting right. For me, though, with my contacts and fettling prowess I knew this Saab could be confidently placed into squadron service with a weekend’s worth of tinkering. Just half a mile into the test drive to the nearest filling station the Swede unceremoniously stuttered to a halt – halfway over a roundabout.
His valeter arrived some fifteen minutes later with two cans of fuel shortly after two officers in a panda car helped us clear the roundabout and get it up onto the kerb. After filling with fuel, the key fob then went on the blink and locked us out which took another ten minutes of fiddling to get going. After running out of fuel, an ever-growing list of faults and a dodgy key, any less-informed punter would have run away screaming for their life – and as a consequence, I’m the new keeper. Why did I buy it? The reason is simple, after thirty odd years of buying, buggering about with and selling cars you get a gut feeling when something seems right.
Despite the faults, the Saab drove lovely. All the important stuff worked A1, the suspension was quiet and taught – it just felt OK. His advert hinted that he could be tempted with a part-exchange, so some bartering took place. There was little wrong with the Volvo for him to clobber me with apart from it needing a thorough valet – he knew it and I knew it – so after half an hour of playing verbal tennis and shuffling around in our seats a deal was done whereby we effectively swapped cars. The journey back to Sussex was a hoot and I was now behind the wheel of a car that I could genuinely enjoy driving.
A decent 9-3 is rather like falling into your favourite armchair after a hard day’s work. They are familiar, soothing and the moment you sink into the seats you make that ahhh noise. Very much a Marmite car though, you either get them or you don’t and after owing five others before – I can’t get them enough. Electrifying performance, superb layout of the interior and cruising refinement that would make the ambient noise of a church hurt your ears. The problems it possesses are nothing more than daft little things the likes of myself or a budding DIY’ER can easily fix and don’t be put off by some rumours – Saabs are surprisingly easy to run and service.
I must go on record to thank Dom at Pembury Auto Centre in Tunbridge Wells (formerly Edenbridge Saab) for getting me out of the mire by providing and coding a new key fob – not to mention sourcing and supplying some seals for the PAS pump that was leaking. I have been bitterly shocked and disappointed in the past with some so-called brand specialists but this cracking little garage in a quiet corner of Kent is top-drawer stuff. They sit on a pile of genuine Saab parts too and there isn’t much they cannot get hold of within 24hrs. That’s another impressive Saab thing too, they may have ceased production back in 2012 but the aftermarket parts division is very much alive.
As for my 2005 9-3 Vector Sport saloon, I am working through the list of niggly things and the PAS no longer throws green fluid all over the engine bay. The aircon recirc motor no longer sounds like a Kalashnikov being fired in the glovebox – a cheap but horrible job to fix. The headlamps now polished to perfection too. All-in-all it’s looking good and I’m happy… so far!
“After running out of fuel, an ever-growing list of faults and a dodgy key, any less informed punter would have run away screaming for their life – and as a consequence, I’m the new keeper”