Saab 9-5 Aero | Shed of the Week
It's ten years since a car was built at Trollhättan. Time to buy an Anniversary edition?
Fear of the unknown prevents many of us from doing stuff we’d quite like to try if only we were brave enough. Shed used to have a long list of suggestions that he felt might have helped his marriage pinned up in his workshop, but when Mrs Shed caught sight of it she told him to shove it where the sun didn’t shine so it ended up in the septic tank via Shed’s outside khazi.
Fear drives the market in used big-turbo Saabs. This one here is a 256hp and 273lb ft Aero that, when new, would burn through 0-62mph in 6.5 seconds. You can have it today for £1,290. On power and performance, they are a total bargain but these crazy-low prices frighten buyers who think there must be something either already expensively wrong with it or something about to go expensively wrong with it.
Of course, things can go south on Saabs, but as any PHer will tell you expensive failures are not exclusive to this brand, and Shed has a good feeling about this car. It has a far from stratospheric mileage (141k), it comes with a service history, and it looks well cared for. The only outside flaw Shed can see is a scuff on the offside B-pillar. Inside, the leather looks as good as new and tough as old boots, which is good because leather is what you make old, or to be strictly accurate new, boots from.
The B235R 2.3-litre four under the bonnet began life in the 1968 Saab 99, four years before its designers Triumph installed it in one of its cars. More than half a century later it’s still respected for its strength and reliability. This 2008 9-5 won’t suffer from the oil sludging that killed pre-2003 B235s because Saab modified the PCV design in 2004, extending the warranty in 2005 to 8 years or (sadly not ‘and’, or else this really would be a bargain) unlimited mileage. They did still use the DIC (direct ignition cassette) which essentially was four coil packs in one unit, a nice idea until it went wrong, which it quite often did. Wise owners keep a spare DIC in the boot. You’ll have to insert your own joke there as Shed’s too busy examining the postmistress’s bottom end to think of one.
Engine mounts on big-power Saabs like this took a pasting and understandably wore out over time. Crank position sensors could fail, causing misfires, fuel pumps could die, and the heater blend arm could break. That was a cheap part but replacing it wasn’t time-cheap. Windows similarly conked out. Again, grotty parts that took a while to fit.
The Aero’s automatic transmission, a Japanese Aisin five-speeder, was a steady rather than stellar performer. It did acquire a rep for early-onset dementia but that was mainly in Volvos. If it hadn’t blown by the time 50,000 miles rolled up the chances were it would be OK.
Dynamically the 9-5 didn’t have the smooth efficiency of the German execs or the sporty appeal of Jaguar’s XF, which came out towards the end of the gen-one Saab’s run, but the Swedish saloon did have loads of space and a good specification. And of course rampant performance that you could ramp up even more. 600hp has been commonly achieved with the B235. Back in the 2000s, there was an 800hp B235 9-3.
Back on planet Earth, what’s the 9-5 Aero Anniversary? 2007 marked Saab’s 60th year in the carmaking biz. No carmaker can resist an anniversary so for both the 9-3 and the 9-5 it was a case of rummaging through the extras box to create Anniversary versions of the Linear Sport, Vector Sport and top-spec Aero models. Unlike the Turbo Edition cars which had just about everything thrown at them, the Anniversary was more of a quick bling-up job with five-spoke 17-inch wheels, DVD sat nav, CD changer in the boot, cooling in the glove box and dual-zone climate everywhere else.
Shed thinks that the front seats of some Anniversaries might have had Saab logos embossed on them but there’s no pic here to confirm or deny that. It’s hard to be specific on specs with Saabs of this vintage as there was a tendency to put in whatever was lying around in the factory at the time. Whatever, Saab reckoned the Anniversary extras were worth about £3k but there was no corresponding uplift in the Aero’s price, which was nice of them.
There’s been a non-excessive oil leak on this car’s MOT paperwork since 2018 but other than that the history looks great. The current ticket runs to the end of August and contains just one advisory for slightly frayed seatbelt webbing. Otherwise, going back in time it’s just the usual consumables with no mention of corrosion anywhere.
The major downsides of this week’s shed, presuming no expensive failures, will be its running costs. You’ll praise the day when you see the official fuel consumption figure of 27mpg and Shed thinks its road tax might be somewhere in the region of £675 a year. Think of it as £56 a month though and it doesn’t seem so bad. What’s that, three packets of fags or a couple of stops on the Tube?
Cracking motors & a veritable bargain.
Good comment on the DI cassette: likely to go around 80-100k miles, but otherwise relatively trouble free motoring.
Always loved the night button!
Fully expected to move on to the next one, but it rapidly turned into an end of line model that scared me off
Moved south to Gothenburg and still have my 2014 XC60…equally fabulous motor, also now over 100k miles - Polestar’d up and still feels fresh!
Have owned two 9-5 estates and had no real issues with either ... but sold the last one about 9 years ago. They're all getting on a bit now.
Did look again when buying a second car earlier in the year but the fuel consumption and tax put me off; along with the possibility of age related bigger bills.
This is cheap enough to get over that; it looks in pretty good fettle. Tax and fuel will be expensive.
This one looks to have factory satnav (touch screen!), as did mine, which was comically bad even for its time.
Tax will be increasing next month too I think, so VED will be a even bigger suppository to swallow!!
Funny isn't it though, this is built on the GM2900 platform, yes 'crappy' Vauxhall and General Motors parts bin - yet if this had a Vauxhall badge on it, we would get the...chav/angry dad, council...must of failed at life jibes
Funny world hey
The write up put a smile on my face as usual Mr Shed thanks too!
I've always had a soft spot for a Saab, so I definitely approve.
Do like a smooth Swedish auto but if you were to pump this one up I do wonder how much extra thrust the box on this one could take?
When I had my 9-3 V6 you had to upgrade the clutch/flywheel on the manuals to tune them up but the autos could take bigger turbos and injectors easily.
I was on my 5th Saab by 2006 so I’d seen the steady decline and a 93 Aero estate was my last.
Shame as I really liked the Swedish quirks that that made them different to the German alternatives.
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