2007 Saab 9-3
Complaints about this year name rough far more often than the model's other years — 8% of them, about 21× the usual rate of 0.4%.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 310 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 86 |
| Involving a crash | 4 |
| Involving a fire | 10 |
| Recalls | 3 |
| EPA combined | 20 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- coil — 20.6% of this year's complaints, against 7.3% across the model's other years (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: coil, spring, broken, coil spring.
- floor — 6.5% of this year's complaints, against 0.5% across the model's other years (11.9×). Owners wrote it as: floor, continues, stop car, emergency brake.
- aero — 9% of this year's complaints, against 3.3% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: aero, convertible, saab aero, 9-3 aero.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
Also unusual this year
- valves — 7% of complaints, 18× usual
- cold — 9% of complaints, 9× usual
- aero — 6% of complaints, 16× usual
What owners wrote
NEEDS VALVE JOB ($3K) DUE TO IMPROPERLY HARDENED VALVES. VERY COMMON PROBLEM ON THIS CAR. ROUGH RUNNING WHEN COLD. COMPRESSION TEST VERIFIES THIS CONDITION: VERY POOR WHEN COLD, BUT FINE WHEN WARM. IF LEFT ON-FIXED, WILL CAUSE PERMANENT MISFIRING.
ENGINE VERY ROUGH WHEN STARTING AFTER COLD NIGHT. THIS SEEMS TO BE A VERY COMMON PROBLEM ON THE INTERNET FOR THESE CAR MODELS AND YEARS, AND THE OFFICIAL REASON IS IMPROPERLY HARDENED (DEFECTIVE) INTAKE VALVES. EVENTUALLY THE CAR WILL NOT RUN. REPAIR IS ABOUT…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 16V063000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 14V318000 SEAT BELTS Fixed free of charge.
- 11E009000 FUEL SYSTEM, GASOLINE Fixed free of charge.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Saab 9-3 was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2007 Saab 9-3? What happened to yours?
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