Tell me if I'm stupid. I'm coming out of high school

OP here. I'm in Melbourne (Australia) if that matters.

So you've watched mcm episode on wasaabi and you want one too. They said that parts are pretty hard to find but not impossile. I'm from yurop and my neighbour had some kind of saab (dunno what model, looked similiar to your pic) and he didn't complain. He had it for like 10 years so I assume he took care of it.

>>15986584
Haha, no I haven't actually, although I probably should now. They've just kind of fascinated me since I was quite young. Your comment's reassuring at least. I mean I don't intend to drive it too hard and I'm very good on general car maintenance so maybe it wouldn't be too bad as a daily driver.

They are better than any other eurotrash car.
Read Opel,Volkswagen,Seat,Fiat etc...

>>15986578
mengeles are cool and all, but denying a saab its three spokes, incas or turbos is just wrong

Do you have the space and time to work on it yourself? If you do are you smart enough to fix it when it breaks? Be honest. Otherwise unless you're rich you're going to regret buying it. This is true for any luxury or sports car that old.

There is probably some middle ground between buying the antique auto you've always wanted right away and getting a 4 door auto civic. Everyone fucks up their first car.

>>15986662
I'm very mechanically able (I've built dozens of bikes from the frame up, can use anything from a lathe to a mill, know how to use basically any hand tool etc.) but to be honest I don't know too much about anything too car specific. I'm more than happy to do say an oil change or change a tyre but I am really passionate to learn how to do more which I can't really do without my own car though. I've been reading up on how to do things but I can't really apply any of it at the moment. I've also got a few mates who are absolute car geeks so I do have access to them for irl advice about anything serious on the car.

Buy something you can actually afford dude.

You don't want to be blowing a huge portion of your paycheck on spare parts every two weeks or be worrying about how you'll make it to uni during finals week

The old pre-gm saabs are /were reliable provided they were taken care of and maintained.

They haven't made the "good" ones in over 20 years, so you won't find a good example unless you luck out and find some tweed wearing college professor type who is offloading his one owner, dealer maintained car. The "good" 9000's and 9/5's continued a bit longer before GM got their bullshit cost cutting fingers into the cars. Might want to consider them as well.

If you look around, there are usually one or two Swedish car specialists in any given metro area that "know" Saab and volvo. They might just be a small garage with half a dozen sweed cars of various vintages outside, but they are helpful as a start.

But yeah a dumb student should get into something less meme and into a civic or Corolla.

Had one, it was shit.

>>15986578
>I really want a pre-GM saab. I'm looking at either a mid 90s 900 non turbo or late 90s 9-3
so the mid 90s 900 and 9-3 are both gm cars. The are both based on opels. THe picture you posted is a pre 93 900

I have a 01 9-3 which is similar to the 94+ 900. I also have a 92 900 (pure saab) and a 95 9000 (fiat/saab).
The 9000 is the best car, the 92 is the most saaby, the 01 is very good car.

For the mid 90s the non turbo will be very reliable. Suspension will be worn, but that is to be expected. I would look for a 98, i believe you can get that year in non turbo, as it will have an updated suspension. You will want manual if you can. if you go for a late 90s 9-3 the only one available to you is a 1999, that will have a t25 turbo which tend to fail, but it has the b204 engine which is stronger than the b205. I have an 01 9-3 which has the b205, mine has 240k miles and has been trouble free but it has a great maintenance record.

If when you said mid 90s you mean a pre gm saab (-1994) they are pretty stout especially the non turbo. You will need to keep an eye on the transmission if manual. The pinion bearings fail and destroy the transmissions. This isn't as big factor on the non turbos as the torque is less, but a used transmission starts at about 1000 as it is unique to the car.

Parts for the 9-3 are not hard to find. A few cosmetic parts for the 9000 and 91 900 are.

had said saab w/ turbo... even relatively low mileage (~90000).

was driving it one day, and the intercooler blew up... stopped driving and cut engine as soon as I saw smoke... but the turbo was still toasted.

Shop quoted $3000 to fix it, and that was the end of that car.

Have you considered a Volvo?