2k new car but what ?

[WolverineMAc]

Had one of those, 4.7 Overland manage 8 mpg or 18 mpg for a trip from eastbourne to brecon wales 85% motorway miles

[Mk5 GTian]

Straight from the left field - a friend of mine will be selling her car after Christmas - a 4.7 V8 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Leather, CD, A/C and only 50k miles. 

A mate had one of those. It didn't do mpg, it did gpm!!

[zerolag]

About a 54 plate 9-3, think they look nice but it'll just be trying to find 1 with decent mileage. My mother in law has an x plate 9-3 2.0t which aint bad but its auto. Only done about 45k though so may hang on in the hope she gets rid of it soon-ish. Just a heads up, she had trouble last year with the mot and failed on the bulk head ( which I found out for her was a common problem) and saab was gonna charge her £1400!! But after doing some homework they done it for free. But you may want to check on it if you look at 1

Yeap, the early "Classic shape" 9-3's shared the chassis with the Vauxhall Cavaliar!!  That was GM's input as SAAB had made there own but it was deemed too expensive (mofos).  The steering rack was a problem on the Cav's too, but once you started putting 200BHP+ through them, it got bad.  There were a lot of split bulkheads especially on the Aeros and the Viggen.  The 9-3 convertible's of that shape were comical.

I had a 9-3 Viggen for a year, great dollops of torque but swapped it for a 9-5 Aero which was put together much better and had the same engien with more power - a great cruiser and straight line WOTing, but not nimble by any stretch of the imagination.

[Mk5 GTian]

What about a Toyota Celica T sport VVTi 190?

[GrayMK5GTI]

What about a Toyota Celica T sport VVTi 190?

No torque 

Civic Type R would be a much better investment if revy engines is what he likes   

Those are real drivers cars 

[Mk5 GTian]

What about a Toyota Celica T sport VVTi 190?

No torque 

Civic Type R would be a much better investment if revy engines is what he likes   

Those are real drivers cars 

No grunt low down, I hated the test drive I had. You had to thrash the nuts out of it before you got going. I got out a nervous wreck!

[GrayMK5GTI]

What about a Toyota Celica T sport VVTi 190?

No torque 

Civic Type R would be a much better investment if revy engines is what he likes   

Those are real drivers cars 

No grunt low down, I hated the test drive I had. You had to thrash the nuts out of it before you got going. I got out a nervous wreck!

Haha ive had two of them, the old model, and the last model (2009) in White 

They are great when you are in the mood, superb sharp steering and lightning throttle response, best gear change I've ever experienced and mechanically very good.

When your not in the mood though, they can be tiresome  the lack of torque can be a problem at low revs. You don't have problems with DV's, PCV's etc with them (no turbo) and go on forever with lots of abuse (even supercharged ones out there with 100+k miles)