New Saab 9-5 getting poor reviews vs 520d

Confab wrote: »

What an enormous(ly) ugly car. Yuck. Like a stretched Kia Somethingorother. Ok, it's not Saab's fault as they didn't design much of it. It looks like an 80's 'Cars you'll see in 2010' that people laughed at for looking incredibly stupid.

With the exception of the current 9-3, Saabs have always been different and quirky ..a love it or hate it kind of brand. Those that loved it stayed very loyal to it, as nobody else had anything similar to offer.
The current 9-3 was made to be mainstream, which in my opinion helped to kill off Saab almost forever. Saab don't have the size, market share or finances to play the dog-eat-dog mainstream market and they only had a mediocre product to do so. Without being quirky and just mediocre it just disappeared in the mass of sameness.
I'm glad to see that the 9-5 is returning to quirky Saab-ness, I hope it works out for them and gives them the breathing space to develop "real" Saabs again in the future.

I used to always drive Saabs, but for the last ten years I have driven Audi's.
I had the new 9-5 for a overnight, thanks to Faichney Ringwood, and I have to say I was gobsmacked by it. The ride and handling knocked spots off my A6, the inside has enough saab to make it stand out, and the space in back and in the boot is great. My O/H fell in love with it the moment she saw it.
I will be ordered one for Jan'11 and can't wait to get into the drivers seat again.

According to Fachney Ringwood the 2.0T (the petrol that everyone says is the 9-5 to get) is coming to ireland but they don't have pricing yet.

I went down to my Saab dealer this lunchtime to take a spin in the Demo model. For comparison purposes I thought I'd head down in an old model (08) 9-5.

First Impressions:
I couldn't quite get a handle on whether I liked the looks of the car from the photo's I'd seen. Some angles it looked ungainly, from other angles it looked great. In the flesh I really like the look, and the chunky C pillar gives it (IMHO) an American Muscle Car look for the rear flank.

The one thing that you do notice standing next to the car that might not come across in the pictures is the sheer size of the thing! I wasn't expecting it to be much larger than the Insignia, but it's huge. At 5m long it's roughly the same length as an S-Class (according to my Saab dealer). This translates in to better than average leg room in the rear seats, and a very long (but not very deep) boot. Rear Leg room isn't as big as the Skoda Superb, but is larger than a 5 Series, E Class, A6 or S80.

The binnacle layout is pretty funky. As part of the on board computer there is the option to have the speedo displayed like an aircraft altimeter. Bit strange to begin with, and not sure many people will perservere with this view, but it adds a nice touch.

The full width LED lights across the back of the car will probably make it look very imposing in the dark. Doesn't have a great impact in daylight.

The demo was an auto, which has a smooth change, responds well to accelerator input and accelerates well from all speeds. It's not too noisy for a diesel either.

Now the good bits are out of the way...............

The centre console is a huge mass of nasty black plastic. The version I drove was the Vector spec, so not the base model and even this just has cheap looking matt black plastic surrounding the radio. Radio controls and the heated seat controls look fairly good, but just get lost being black on black.

Unfortunatley, the worst bit is the ride. I'm not usually too picky on how a car handles, but as 50% of the time I was in the car was steady cruising on a motorway, it's very very poor. For something which should be a comfortable mile muncher, the Motorway is where it should excel, but it fails miserably. Not sure if it's too firm, but it was bouncing up and down the whole way along a 3 mile ish stretch of motorway, and a return parralel journey on a fairly new tarmac road. Standard wheels on the Vector are 17" with what looked like a 55 or 60 profile, so it's not down to the tyres.

Seats are up to the usual high Saab standard, but can't mask the failings of the suspension.

Despite the looks and size of the car, I'm going to struggle to be too positive about it if asked.

racer1 wrote: »

Hey i have a 08 Saab 95 and love it. Very comfy car. So ROR how would you compare old 95 and the new one? I never go by english car reviews as there badge snobby and also a lot depends on who is placing adverts with them.

I was never a huge fan of the old 9-5, and it didn't help that the one I took down has led a particulaly hard life. There's more gearstick movement in 3rd than there is in my Accord in neutral :eek: (ok, maybe not quite, but you get the picture).

Fairly similar performance (1.9Tid 150), but the interior of the new model is a much better layout, better seating postion and more spacious.

The ride of the old model was much smoother on the way down, even though it's on low profile 17" wheels.