Saab 9-3 Sport Combi 2.0T Vector 2008 Review

Road Test

Overall rating: 3.5/5.0
Engine/Drivetrain/Chassis: 3.5/5.0
Price, Packaging and Practicality: 3.5/5.0
Safety: 3.5/5.0
Behind the wheel: 3.5/5.0
X-factor: 4.0/5.0

About our ratings

Saab was founded on its expertise building fighters for the Swedish defence force and subsequently branched out into car design and development. Acquired by General Motors in the 1990s, the company that pioneered mainstream production of turbo petrol engines for passenger cars has navigated a rocky road in recent years. Lack of resource has plagued the marque and rumours that GM would even sell Saab have surfaced from time to time.

Saab has always been a product of the Swedish culture, much more so perhaps than its Ford-owned rival, Volvo. Design -- depending on one's personal point of view -- has been aligned with clinical, left-brain thinking or has fallen prey to muddled, quizzical whimsy. One would expect nothing less from a company that shares its birthplace with the likes of ABBA, Bjorn Borg and Ikea.

Saabs have not always offered the same glamour as Sweden's biggest earning pop quartet or the ice-cool power play of Sweden's most famous tennis player and the...ummm...flat-pack practicality and economy of Sweden's most annoying furniture manufacturer. With the 9-3 Sport Combi Vector 2.0T however, it has upped the glam quotient, dropped in a grand slam engine... And almost entirely steered clear of any Ikea metaphor.

With Germanic levels of fit and finish, the 9-3 Sport Combi could not be accused of DIY build quality and, although there's a diesel variant available, the 154kW turbocharged petrol model we drove for this test fell a long way short of what most would term economical. It is somewhat practical, however...

Let's set the scene. The 9-3 Sport Combi is sort of an old school Euro car. It has reasonably heavy steering and firm suspension. As with turbocharged Saabs of the past, this one has a bit of lag, but gratifying levels of torque right across the rev range. In point-to-point driving, it's easy enough to keep it on the boil and -- for a load-carrier -- it's respectably quick.

It pays to set up the Saab in advance if you're expecting something a bit more than a Sunday cruise. The engine works very well with the five-speed automatic transmission, but a driver can extract more performance from the combination by selecting the 'Sport' mode, pressing the button to the left of the steering wheel (actually hidden by the driver's hands and arms when it could be more prominent).

Keeping the gear selector in the sports mode quadrant and using the sequential shift feature help a lot too.

The sequential shift is quite responsive and allows the turbo to remain on boost when the driver needs it. Contrary to conventional wisdom that turbo engines are unpredictable in their power delivery, the 9-3 Sport Combi Vector suffers from lag, but it is predictable when the torque will arrive and drivers can balance the performance by feeding in just enough torque for optimal acceleration without breaking traction.

The engine and transmission provide a lot of useful feedback to the driver and it's easy to drive the 9-3 Sport Combi within its well defined and clearly laid out parameters. Compared with the turbo engines fitted to the 9-3 on its original release in Australia five years ago, the current turbo engine in the Sport Combi sounds a little gruff, almost like the 2.3-litre high output turbo engine in the 9-3 Viggen.

So, the engine has torque in abundance and it tells the driver as much by its exhaust note. The gruff character has its own appeal and yet, the engine is not unrefined.

The five-speed automatic is -- as already mentioned -- quite responsive when used manually, but also smooth and capable, as when dawdling around the suburbs. Through no fault of the transmission, drivers will infrequently experience a shunt when the engine falls off-boost.

Steering is fairly direct and offers enough feel to place the 9-3 Sport Combi precisely on the road. Roadholding, notwithstanding the torque available, is easily up to the standards of other European cars of a similar specification.

From a handling standpoint, the 9-3 Sport Combi represents a return to older Saabs. With the new 9-3 in 2002, Saab introduced a fancy multi-link IRS system which was so steadfast, the car would always understeer first, unlike the older models, which were blessed with a torsion beam at the rear and could be provoked into trailing throttle oversteer.

The latest 9-3 Sport Combi can also be provoked into letting go at the rear with enough angle and sufficient engine braking, but unlike the torsion-beam models, it's all much more gentlemanly. The whole affair is neater and tidier -- and quickly put in its place by the ESP.

Overall, taking into account the 9-3 Sport Combi's cornering and performance, it's a car you would be quite happy to punt on a stretch of winding road somewhere out in the back blocks.

But the Sport Combi is not just some pretend wagon. It looks stylish enough to be a prestige 'Estate', but it has a decent sized luggage compartment. There's also a secondary bi-fold floor section that covers the folding spare tyre cover, which we presume is there as an extra NVH-reduction measure. To raise the cover there's a nice touch, in the form of a satin-finish handle shaped like an aircraft seen in elevation. Pull the 'mainplane' wings of the handle to raise the handle itself and pull up the cover.

Headroom and legroom are adequate for adult-sized rear-seat passengers. A skiport seems largely redundant in a wagon with folding seats, but it's there anyway. Seats are a 60/40 split-fold type and fold almost flat, without the need to remove the headrests, which gives you some indication of the amount of rear seat legroom available.

In the front, the seats really hold you in place and around the upper body section in particular. They're very comfortable but also highly supportive. As a bonus, it's relatively easy to find the ideal position for the average-sized driver.

In the test car those seats were trimmed in Parchment leather with dark grey strips between the side bolsters and the main section of the squab. The look was stylish and was carried through to the rest of the cabin, with cream lower section, dark grey carpets/floor mats and a dark grey upper section for the door panels, dash and centre fascia -- all offset by satin-finish metal trim pieces. It's modern, but not stark. Even the inner door handles are well designed and attractive.

Despite the lack of an iDrive/Comand/MMI system, most of the features are as sophisticated as they need to be without adding complexity for the sake of -- well, complexity.

Cupholders are located in the rear seat below the centre section. Another cupholder forms part of the centre console with a cover and pivoting holder which can be rotated backwards for when the cupholder is being used for purposes other than holding cups, ie: coins, tickets, wallets, sunglasses, etc. The final cupholder is a push-button unit in the dash and one push will release the latch for the cupholder to deploy outwards from dash, rather like the dying swan in 'Swan Lake'. It's a joy to watch.

The 'Night Panel' is a long-standing feature of Saab instrument panels (when chosen only the speedometer is illuminated) and we have to say, it's not entirely necessary. At night, the lighting is relaxing enough anyway. Calibrations and graphics are bathed in a light -- but not vivid -- green on a black background with back-lighting that's almost 'moody'.

Favourites buttons are all the rage and the Saab has its own. They work as expected and are easily re-programmed. The trip computer is probably not as informative as some from other European manufacturers (couldn't find an instant fuel consumption read-out, for example), but it's easy to use and will meet the requirements of most consumers. Among the features selectable from the computer are an adjustable speed warning, phone interface, distance-to-empty and external temperature.

On the subject of fuel consumption, the average, according to the computer, was around 13.9L/100km. That's bound to be a bit of an issue for those expecting better from a 2.0-litre car. But this is a 2.0-litre turbocharged car with all the performance potential that suggests.

As with every Saab since forever, the ignition barrel is positioned in the centre console, between the front seats. If you're familiar with Saabs and this is not too great an adjustment to make, it's sensible from a crash safety point of view.

On the remote central locking key fob, there's a follow-me home function to operate the parking and tail lights until you've found your way indoors. The switch for the auto-on/off headlights doubles as a manual adjustment for the beam height. At the two o'clock position, the headlights are on, at one o'clock, just the parkers. At twelve o'clock, the auto position is selected and moving counter-clockwise from there will provide variable beam height levels. Good idea and works well, although you cannot use it to adjust the height if the lights are not switched to 'Auto'.

We like the looks of the car, it's well equipped and packaging is done well. It doesn't feel unnecessarily large and is easy to park -- provided you don't need to make a tight turn to get into the parking spot. The 9-3 Sport Combi's turning circle is probably the most obvious of the car's Achilles heels.

We don't like the sequential shift flippers on the steering wheel spokes. If you're not supposed to be changing gear while cornering anyway, you might as well take one hand off the wheel to change gear with the lever. It's not like the 9-3 Sport Combi has the sort of Viggen-like levels of torque steer and axle tramp that necessitate hanging on to the wheel with both hands to keep the car tracking in a straight line.

On the subject of niggles, we discovered from whence the awful VE Commodore park brake has come -- Saab! Much the same design is used in the 9-3 Sport Combi and it's no better than in the Aussie car, although it doesn't feel quite as cheap and flimsy.

Well, if we can get used to the VE's handbrake, we should try to be as magnanimous for the Saab. As with the Commodore, the Saab does encourage you to overlook some of its minor shortcomings, because as a package, it's pretty good. Plenty of interior space and carrying capacity, but it has a bit more cachet than your average load-lugger. It goes hard and steers nicely.

If the Saab suffers by comparison with another turbo wagon of similar size, it would be at the hands of the Subaru Liberty GT, which offers the additional safety advantage of all-wheel drive. Still, many people retain a soft spot for the Saab and it's the right choice for the right sort of buyer.

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