The Dad Wagon...

[Alex_225]

Ok, so I ended up buying a fourth car! Some would say overkill, I would call it bangernomics.

Basically my little girl lives 130 miles away so I do a round trip to pick her up every other weekend. Well as you can imagine a 133 isn't really ideal for the trip and as comfy as my CLS is, 25mpg makes it somewhat expensive. Plus these are two cars I intend on keeping long term so would be nice to keep the miles off them.

So I went on the hunt for a Dad wagon, something comfy, cheap to buy, good on fuel and spacious enough for typical family stuff.

And here it is, my 2005 Saab 9-3tdi Vector. It cost me a whole £1,200 and has 136k on the clock.

The car has a cream leather interior which as you can see, cleaned up extremely well. It has some great quirky little features and is actually an extremely well thought out car.

One such feature which Saab was known for was the Night Panel button, which basically switches off all the lighting in the car bar the speedo. Sounds daft but it cuts the glare right down when you're on a long run in the dark.

Here's the main thing though, bloody epic MPG!!!

 

[charlie46]

:thumbup: You get my vote on this one! I`ve always liked Saab`s!

 

[flowerpowerdave]

Bargain! my first sar was a mk1 escort, second Saab99 loved it.

 

[Alex_225]

Thanks chaps, it definitely has a certain coolness to it I must admit.

Thing is for wafting on the motorway, it's ideal. 6th gear, cruise control set to just under 70 and it wafts along brilliantly!

It's got a couple of niggles, think it needs new glow plugs and it's leaked some power steering fluid so it's being looked at tomorrow.

Had the clutch and flywheel done last year so no overly expensive servicing looming.

Tell you what though, the 150bhp lump in it is great. Pulls well in every gear, not fast as such off the line but in gear it's quite impressive.