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I have an '07 2.0T SS that is approx 1 year old and has about 18k mi on the ticker. The mileage has always been very close to that reported on the sticker (about 31 hwy, 24 city...may be different for the SC) and the recall did not appear to change it dramatically...though on mine, if anything, it could have improved a bit (if you live in CA it is plausible that your ignition advance is timed differently to meet more stringent standards). If you do any amount of city or stop and go the lower mileage numbers will quickly skew the running average on the counter, but if you reset it on the hwy and cruise steady at 65 mph on flat surface you will probably get 31 to 33 mpg. Hills will drop it, and so will lead feet. The hwy mileage is actually quite good for a car with this much power (compare it to say, a volvo S40 turbo or an audi and those cars will be mid to low 20's on the HIGHWAY). I'm guessing your prior car maybe had 175 hp or so...thus the slightly better mileage (the 9-3 linear of the past had 175 hp and about 3 mpg better than the '07, I believe). My 20 year old 900T got better mileage than my current SS but it only had 165 hp. You can't really blame SAAB if the mileage is as reported. You want power, you use more gas.
Regarding the idle, if the car misses and tach varies when idling warm then you may have a problem. Mine is rock steady (I'm presuming its computer controlled). You could get the plugs replaced and check the old ones for evidence of oil in the combustion chamber or look for blue smoke on startup (that could cause rougher running w/ time). The sound of the engine at idle is generally like that of a diesel truck (louder and rougher sounding when cold) but that's just the way it is. From my experience, the engine sound is more pronouced and "grainy'er" on cold start when the ambient temps go below 65 or so deg F. At first I thought this sounded like the engine was wearing itself out (like mating gears with too-tight tolerances..who knows maybe it is) but it appears to just be the normal cold engine sound (some refer to it as sounding "cheap"). On mine the grainy sound fades after a few minutes of driving. IMHO, SAAB would be better off if the car did NOT sound like this but I think that's just the way they designed it.
Regarding break-in, mine has only improved with miles. While the manual says to take it easy for the first 1200 miles or so, mine improved quite a bit after 8000 miles and has at least appeared to still improve in smoothness and power after 15,000 mi (though it could have just been that after 15k I switched to winter gas). I know synthetic oil slows break-in so its certainly plausible that engine would slowly improve in this manner, however, that's just a hunch on my part (others may be better informed than I on that).
I'm actually less concerned about the engine than I am things like electrical ABS sensors and expensive traction control modules failing and nickel/diming me to death before the engine fails. It's my general understanding that SAAB invested quite a bit of $$$ into the re-design of the 9-3 for '03 and beyond, and this car is much LESS of a GM parts bin "frankencar" than prior GM inspired models (that doesn't mean FREE of GM parts it just means that they had more freedom to design it "right" from the ground up).
Pat
'07 2.0T SS
'87 900T (RIP)
posted by 129.162....
, Tue, 27 Nov 2007 09:45:32
, Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:34:19
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