Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Volvo and front in the case of the SAAB). The first one has a Volvo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 205hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp engine designed by FIAT.

The fact that the SAAB got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, S80 offers a marginal difference of 8% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the SAAB badge with 4.1 out of 5. Independent research findings rank S80 as average reliability-wise, and 9-5 is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as S80 rank it on average as 4.9, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.1 out of 5.

Volvo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 225 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle.

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, 9-5 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Volvo being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.