Saab 9-5 Aero Estate

Ooh, Retro Rides now has a forum for more modern stuff too, nice! Here is the diary so far of our most recent purchase - A 9-5 Aero estate that is to be used as a mummy wagon.

It all came about as my other half was becoming increasingly worried about using the recently restored 9000 Aero when taking our daughter to places that other mums frequented after watching yet another door being opened onto a an innocent car.

Her instructions were very simple: "Please go and buy something scruffy and cheap that I can park anywhere and not worry about it being damaged or getting dirty"

Sadly for her I am really not great at following simple instructions so after looking at a few scruffy and cheap ones I found one that was neither scruffy nor cheap at the other end of the country and paid a deposit.

Prior to finding this one I had already driven a couple and decided it was definitely what we were getting so I had started buying parts that would later come in useful.

The car itself is a pretty rare find in that someone seems to have gone completely over board specifying it when new and just ticked every single option. The main ones that drew me to the car were:

• 2005 Model Year - meant to be the best year with these 9-5s
  
• Heated and ventilated seats
  
• Both front seats with electrical adjustment and memory
  
• Heated rear seats
  
• CD changer
  
• GPS Navigation system with touch screen
  
• Folding wing mirrors with memory function and auto dimming
  
• Electric sunroof
  
• Tow-bar
  
• Sentronic 5 speed auto w/ paddle shifts
• Rain sensor
• Carbon fibre dashboard

It has a full service history quite often showing less than 5000 miles between services and has only covered 85,000 miles so far. Again, pretty rare to find with these as most of them are well on the way to 200,000 miles now.

So, having talked to the seller and seen a very poor quality video I booked a one way flight and arranged the insurance. I would never normally buy a car 'blind' like this but this one seemed to be such a rarity I thought it worth a shot. A month and a bit later I flew up on a Saturday night, stayed with my cousin and then met the seller at a super market car park very early on Sunday morning. He drove me to a farm quite a few miles from anywhere and pulled it out of the barn it had been sat in since the start of summer. At this point I gave it a good look over and spotted a few cosmetic bits I had annoyingly not been made aware of before flying up. Fortunately the rest of the car and the history stacked up and I was in no position to barter at this point so I paid up, taxed it and hit the road. Got home late Sunday evening after a good 400 mile drive back down where the car performed well and all seemed fine.

Next morning there appeared a mixture of fluids underneath it. Turned out the first long drive in quite a while had prompted a few issues to surface! We had oil, water and power steering fluid all making an appearance. At this point I was really wondering what I had got myself into. I had always planned to have the sump dropped as soon as I got it back so sent it off to my local Saab guy with a list of things to do.

In the first two months of owning it we did the sump drop including an oil and filter, front subframe bushes, water pump, oil pressure switch, rear parking sensors, gearbox oil, drive belts (including fitting a missing cover), new power steering pipes and power steering pump and a whole host of vacuum pipes.

In between all of that the car also had a full paint correction and ceramic coating, new badges, polished headlights, new wheels and US spec indicators. Anyhow, enough intro, here is the car as it sits today.

The plan now is for me to focus on the other cars whilst only having to do the odd job on this one.. we'll see how that turns out!