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Hopefully purchasing my first car, 2001 93

645 views 4 replies 5 participants last post by  DMBtuxwaddle 
#1 ·
As of Oct. 16th I turned 18 and now finally with some money saved I am the hunt for my first car. After months of looking on craigslist and having unsuccessful meetings with quite a few people I decided check locally to see what else there might be. Still nothing that had quite what was looking for (euro, turbo, low miles, manual, decent mpg).

After talking to my extended family at thankgiving I had one uncle tell me that his brother happened to have a 2001 9-3 SE 4 door hatchback that he hadn't really drove since he had gotten his Porshe in 2003-04.

Since that fateful day I have been pressuring my uncle's brother for his pretty little Saab.

After weeks of convincing him to sell it, he finally caved and gave me a date to come and test drive/check it out. The date, was this past Tuesday, so I went down to NYC (about an hour drive for myself) to take a look at it, but when going to get it out of the garage it turned out that the battery was dead. Although I did get a chance to look at it, I sadly was not able to test drive it.

Now we are already trying to find a dollar amount that's agreeable with the both of us.

More details about the car,
2001 93 SE 4 Door:

14,200k Miles :cheesy:
Manual
Dealer service since day one
Perfect interior
80% Tred left on the tires
Roof rack (like i'll ever use it :confused:)

His asking price is $10k. Blue book is telling me between $9,700 all the way down to $8,300, I would like to get him down to atleast $8,500 due to my limited budget.

Sadly I am new to the car world in general and my main purpose for this post was to ask for any sort of advice I could find. Should I be asking him any other specific things about the car, should I be making sure of anything?

Thanks in advance!
Taylor
 
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#2 ·
A battery is a $50 item, the "annual maintenance" is roughly $100 per year....trival amounts in comparison to a $30,000 automobile..and a sitting car just needs a few dollars of "annual maintenance"...

And you may well be able to drive it away for less than $10,000 ? ? ? still lingering with that wonderful new car smell ? ?
Take advantage of their lack of knowledge in how to properly store an expensive automobile and buy it......now:cheesy:
 
#3 ·
With those low miles, I wonder if things like the crank vent have been updated, whether or not the bushings are dry rotted...



For around $7800, a SaabLinker in New Hampshire is selling his Nordic stage 3 '99 Viggen. It would be so much more car, for a bit less money.


CraigslistDC has an 01 with 65k for around $6500 to give you an idea. I would save the money, vs trying to find a car with next to none. Especially from extended family with porsches not willing to help out a bit.
 
#4 ·
If I were you I would look for a T5 car. As a teen, you are probably going to want to tinker with it and try some mods. The T5's are sooo much easier to mod than the 2000+ T7's. The car does sound super nice though. I would never suggest that an 18yr old go into 10k debt though. Debt sucks and is ruining our country (sorry, different thread... different time). You can get a good car for $6000 or less.
 
#5 ·
I'm new here too, been reading for a while but my first post (as you can see). Only thing I can tell you is to go for it. I bought my first car (also a 2001 9-3 SE) back in May at 23 years old. It was a bit more expensive (went through CarMax) and had around 50K miles on it.

I kept going back and forth after test driving it if i shoudl buy it or not. Get down there and test drive it. As you probably know, they are just a blast to drive. Sure the maintinence costs are higher than others, and sure I've had to pay the premium for repairs in parts and labor... but nothing and I mean NOTHING compares (for me anyway) to driving my SAAB.

Friend of mine bought a brand new Mazda6 2 years back. He loves it and has put quite a bit of money and time into it. Sure it is fun for me to drive occasionally, but it just can't compare to my Saab.

In the end, the decision is up to you and whether or not it feels right, but go for it. Yes debt sucks, but you're only young once (I'm still young). Double check to make sure you can make the payments on a loan (if necessary) and the insurance. If it looks like it'll work no problem, dive in and have a blast. :cheesy:

~Q
 
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