How big is the estate load space?

[Richard_C]

Never got to find out quite how big the load space really was in the end

Here's how you could find out.  A good project to fill the dismal days over Christmas.

Gather up all your wrapping paper, old newspapers and so on.  Make up a bucket full of flour and water paste.  Completely cover your new fridge freezer with paper, build it up in layers with the paste.  Watch it dry (much more interesting than the TV Christmas specials).

Carefully cut a line up one side, over the top and down the other, remove your cast and tape the 2 halves back together.

Carry to car, and see if it would have fitted in or not, then you know for next time.

You can keep the cast to test out loasdpace in other cars that you might be replacing the SAAB with in years to come.  Roll up at the showroom, take cast of fridge freezer from the SAAB and try it out in the whatever.

[Geoff1951]

Good one, Richard!

[ScarbSaab]

Next from the Audax household: "How comfortable is the 9-5 estate to sleep in overnight? Mrs Audax has banished me from the house for covering her new fridge freezer with papier mache."

[collywobble]

We frequently get a dumpy bag (the ones of 1 tonne capacity that you get sand and gravel delivered in) in the back with the seats folded to take garden rubbish to the tip - whoops recycling centre!

[Audax]

I did get a large pet cage into the back of the 9-5 recently, but that was only in the region 145cm tall so not what I'd call big. When I went to pick it up the seller seemed really paranoid and kept asking me if it would go in the car and that he could deliver it in his van if I wanted. Turned out someone had bought a much smaller cage (less than a metre tall) from them in the past and it just wouldn't fit in their car. He seemed surprised how the 9-5 just swallowed it up.

[Norfolk Jim]

We have 3 large oak trees in front garden which in autumn produce what seems millions of leaves which we religiously sweep up and dispose of in country lanes - no really to recycling centre. I reckon we need to go in Guinness Book of Records for the number of bags we can get in the back. We never use black bin bags as we have loads of old fertiliser plastic sacks we keep re-using and so far I have managed (with a protective cover in the back) 53 bags!!! That's with seats down and crammed to room with my son pushing hard as we try to shut tailgate. The guys that run the centre always look very amused when I arrive and wonder when we've stopped getting bags out. One calls it a tardis. But when we arrive with the trailer aswell stacked up......................... we end up doing this about 4 times during autumn - make mental note when we move to ensure no oak trees - there are just too many to compost and oak takes a long time.

Speaking of leaves - when I worked in London I used to live in Ealing and catch train to Paddington every day then tube...................in the autumn I used to watch a chap sweeping the opposite (Reading bound) platform and moving leaves around. He'd push them to the London end of platform before picking them up until one day a 125 came through fast from Paddington and blew all the leaves back where they came from. He did this 3 times that week which made me and others just laugh until he got the idea if he brushed them the other end of platform then when the 125 came through it would suck them along the track and he wouldn't need to clear them up!!! He was missing the odd brain cell or two I think to start with

[sgould]

But I bet he's out of work now.  He worked out how to do the job in less time.  Bad move.

But it's probably why the trains were delayed because of leaves on the line.

[collywobble]

Slightly off topic!   Spent many a happy time as a schoolboy on Ealing Broadway station trainspotting (not the sort in the film of the same name!). Still have my 'Ian Allen' Combined volume dating from 1959 with all the engines I had seen carefully underlined. If you think owning a Saab is a labour of love did anyone see the wonderful documentary last night on BBC 4 on the enthusiasts restoring old narrow gauge railways? Part 2 next week. Big toys for big boys!

[sgould]

I've just had an e-mail from a friend who is looking for the best place (in 10 days time) near St Albans, to watch Sir Nigel Gresley steam through.

There's a train leaving Victoria at 6.30.  Running through Clapham Junction, Willesden Junction, Brent Loop to Cricklewood, with stops at St Albans (08.00) and Luton (08.15) before going on to Bedford and Kettering.

[steventon95]

We use two 1 tonne dumpy bags in the peak leaf-falling season, and with the back down the two go in the 95 estate fine. We are in and out of the recycling centre while others struggle with a plethora of bin bags.

[Norfolk Jim]

Could you send a couple to me then please?? Mind you how heavy are they when full as often these oak leaves are wet and even 2 bags are heavy so imagine 53 of them.....

[MartinMc711]

Methinks Richard_C has read too many Viz Top Tips...

[CitTone]

How big is the 9-5 estate? Big enough to provide a smug grin when you've completed your shopping, called in to the garden centre on the way home and nonchalantly hurled a 6ft nordman pine into the back having only flipped down the 1/3rd seat back, while watching the bloke with the BMW 5-series struggling....

[Richard_C]

Methinks Richard_C has read too many Viz Top Tips...

Who or what is a Viz?  Sounds like an Eastern European car of some sort.  "Just popping down to the Stasi office in the Viz, dear."

[steventon95]

The Viz did have papier-mache bodywork and a two-stroke engine, and yes, it will fit into the back of a 9-5 estate ...