Saab 9-5 Sport Wagon

The Saab 9-5 estate has a yawing chasm of a boot, and a yawning driver.

• Comfort

  Great seats, lots of room in ever department and decent ergonomics lead the 9-5's tick-sheet on comfort. But if you get big wheels the ride is turbulent.

  

• Performance

  Thanks to their turbos, nothing in the range is tragically slow, especially for mid-range overtaking. But the lower-power versions, petrol or diesels, will struggle if you load them with the amount of weight their boot invites. All power units are four-cylinders, so don't expect class-leading refinement.

  

• Cool

  Big working estates exempt themselves from the cool scale. Neither cool nor uncool, they're just out there.

  

• Quality

  It's been around so long those Swedes have had lots of time to practice spannering the 9-5 together. It's a tough old boot. But it completely lacks the satisfying quality interior jewellery buyers of this class of car have come to look for these days.

  

• Handling

  It's stable on a motorway but through the curves it's imprecise and wobbly. Understeer-heavy, afflicted with torque-steer and generally uninterested in playing games. Get the high-power turbo and the front tyres are really strained.

  

• Practicality

  It's huge and has an equally huge boot. A bioethanol version might seem impractical if you're going to drive a long way from E85 stations but don't worry, it'll run on regular petrol too.

  

• Running costs

  Pretty well-contained for servicing (at 18,000-mile intervals) and insurance, but secondhand buyers have lost interest so it depreciates fairly fast.