l wanna know if a 1999 sabb 9-3 isrelyable and safe car for my son who is 17. the car has 79,000 miles on it and l was wondering how many more miles / years the car would last before somthing major would happen to the engine or tranny

they have bad head gaskets

Saab is r very safe cars. We have always said that a Saab crashes well. (meaning that the occupants r kept safe.) l have my daughter (16) driving a 1994 900 & My wife in a 1999 9-3se convertible. Me, l drive a 1992 9000s ( Wife always gets the nicest car) all of ours have well over 100k miles on them.

As for reliability. That depends solely on how well it was maintained. 1999 9-3s can have engine oil sludging if oil was not changed at 5k intervals with a quality semi-synthetic or better oil. Not a hard fix. Have a tech pull the valve cover to check for sludging. If it does it can be cleaned out & the pick-up screen replace in the oil pan. May cost a few bucks but is worth it. As for the tranny. l assume it is an automatic, l would suggest having a trans flush done not a drain & refill that some shops try to pass off as a service. We do not see that many trans failures on this model.
Hope this is helpful.