kprm77
09-26-2002, 09:41 AM
This from the September edition of "Fleet World" on their Staff Cars section...
"When your first journey in a car, immediately after taking delivery, involves 10 hours behind the wheel , ergonomic failings will soon rear their ugly head - be it an ill placed lumbar adjustment or slightly offset pedals. So it was remarkable that the Saab 9-5 managed to side-step such landmines and prove a massively comfortable way to travel to and from Edinburgh. In fact, the only real black mark is a lack of room for your left foot on the foot rest.
Ordinarily, a drive from North London into the heart of Scotland may be expected to take the thick end of several hours but that figure fails to take account of a stationary M6 traffic jam at 2.30am on a Saturday morning!! We were not amused.
Things could have been worse however. Both myself and my passenger revelled in the comfort of the 9-5's front seats which, whilst not up to Volvo's levels of padding and softness, were simply superb on the long haul.
A single CD player comes standard on the Vector model on test, as does the very comfortable set of aforementioned leather seats. They are actually more half-leather, half-fabric which may seem cheeky but given the choice, these would get the nod every time offering a bit less slip-slide around corners and handy pouches at the front of the seats.
Revised at about this time last year, the 9-5 range still looks visually fresh and very Saab-ish but inside, features such as a dashboard that is incapable of having satellite navigation fitted as standard give the game away.
The 2.2 TiD engine in our 9-5 may not have common rail which counts against it around town but on the motorway - where most 9-5s will spend a lot of their time, it is both quiet, refined and reasonably responsive - 207lb.ft of torque sees to that.
We also managed a respectable 42.3mpg (compared to 40.1mpg on the comined cylce) which means that travelling to Scotland in a large executive car needn't cost the earth.
-Luke Wikner."
"When your first journey in a car, immediately after taking delivery, involves 10 hours behind the wheel , ergonomic failings will soon rear their ugly head - be it an ill placed lumbar adjustment or slightly offset pedals. So it was remarkable that the Saab 9-5 managed to side-step such landmines and prove a massively comfortable way to travel to and from Edinburgh. In fact, the only real black mark is a lack of room for your left foot on the foot rest.
Ordinarily, a drive from North London into the heart of Scotland may be expected to take the thick end of several hours but that figure fails to take account of a stationary M6 traffic jam at 2.30am on a Saturday morning!! We were not amused.
Things could have been worse however. Both myself and my passenger revelled in the comfort of the 9-5's front seats which, whilst not up to Volvo's levels of padding and softness, were simply superb on the long haul.
A single CD player comes standard on the Vector model on test, as does the very comfortable set of aforementioned leather seats. They are actually more half-leather, half-fabric which may seem cheeky but given the choice, these would get the nod every time offering a bit less slip-slide around corners and handy pouches at the front of the seats.
Revised at about this time last year, the 9-5 range still looks visually fresh and very Saab-ish but inside, features such as a dashboard that is incapable of having satellite navigation fitted as standard give the game away.
The 2.2 TiD engine in our 9-5 may not have common rail which counts against it around town but on the motorway - where most 9-5s will spend a lot of their time, it is both quiet, refined and reasonably responsive - 207lb.ft of torque sees to that.
We also managed a respectable 42.3mpg (compared to 40.1mpg on the comined cylce) which means that travelling to Scotland in a large executive car needn't cost the earth.
-Luke Wikner."