Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the SAAB and front in the case of the Volvo). The first one has a Opel-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 210hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 180hp engine designed by Volvo.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the SAAB being a slightly better choice apparently. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, V70 offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of SAAB with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Volvo badge with 4.6 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 9-3 as average reliability-wise, and V70 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as 9-3 rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

SAAB is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 9-3, averaging around 8.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 12% difference compared to V70.

Volvo appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, 9-3 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with SAAB offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but SAAB. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.