I'm proud to be an american

I think the best part about Saturn is it is a US based company. One in a long time to come along.

Å£

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The Artist formally known as Ahkmid Lickachicken.
http://psxi.tripod.com

I, personally, am ashamed of them. I find their styling to be extremely bland, although their reliability is wonderful.

If you're looking for American pride, try these....
http://209.25.185.210/images-small/1993_mosler_raptor-1.gif
http://www.carsauto.com/images/panoz/roadster.jpg
http://www.carsauto.com/inventory/esperante/esptopnew_sm.jpg
http://www.drewlarson.com/Mosler/pict49.jpg
http://www.calstatela.edu/student/obrenes/dreammachines/chevy/sledge/sledge1.jpg


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"Ferrari isn't a car, it's a lifestyle"
-Enzo Ferrari.

I would have to say the the Saturn (all of them) are the most underwhelming examples of automotive engineering I have ever seen.

I wish they would stop taking up space on our roadways.

I'm put off by the fact I can't tell them apart. Why would they have both an SL and an LS?

I like that they put the third door on the SC, nice and innovative, but it wouldn't make me buy one.

They may have a record for selling the most yellow cars. I see them in yellow all the time.

yellow rhymes with mellow . . . i'm quite sure you meant mellow . . .

as in: "They may have a record for selling the most mellow cars"

maybe...

The best things about saturns: good dealers, dent-free bodies.
Thats about it.
They are not that good. Get a protege.

Originally posted by Chris
The best things about saturns: good dealers

i heard they just make it look like they're good dealers, i've read about lots of people complaining about their service. One story was of an Isuzu, which saturn takes care of at their dealerships. This guy with an Isuzu Rodeo was hearing a rattle, took it to the dealership.. when he got the car back there was no more rattle for a day, then it started rattleing again. He checked to see what they did and all they did was put duct tape all over the area that the rattle was comming from..... that's horrible

Perhaps, but they tied with Lexus for the best dealership experience. So they ae really nice if you buy a Saturn. Less so if you buy an Isuzu.

isuzu uses the saturn dealerships though :D
and aren't they like the same company....... wait a minute, aren't they all owned by GM?

This comes from personal experience.
95 SW-2

Buying experience:

The best I've ever had. I looked at the car, took home a credit app. Dropped it back off at the dealer. Went in the next day, signed the papers and was out of there in 15 minutes. Doesn't get any better than that. Tried the same thing with Ford, and was there 4 hrs.

Dealer Service:

Our Saturn dealer (Saturn of El Cajon) was the best dealer I have ever dealt with, and I have done work for dealers for 10 years, all manufacturers, and I have never been to a Saturn dealer that I saw a service rep being crappy to a customer. I could send my wife in with the car, and not be told unecessary work needed to be done. I sure can't say that about other dealerships I have dealt with.

Reliability:

The only parts that were replaced on my car during the 117,000 miles I owned it.
Altenator (I blew it out jump starting my truck) replaced under warranty
Heater core, 85,000 miles, replaced under warranty
Front brakes 70,000 miles, replaced myself
Lifters. 92,000 miles. One of the lifters rattled on startup, Saturn replaced all of them under warranty, also replaced valve stem seals while in there, no charge.

Power and mileage:

No complaints about power, would outrun most cars in it's class. Even with 117,000 miles on it I still got 36mpg in all around driving

Crash rating:

A S-10 truck pulled out in front of my wife with 3 of my children in the car. She was going appox. 40 mph. There was only 6 ft of skid marks. Everyone walked away. Both airbags went off. $11,000.00 worth of damage. 97,000 miles. Insurance paid to have the car fixed. Car was absolutely perfect

Overall thoughts:

A little more rattle prevention would have gone a long way
Seats could have used a little more padding, but were form fitting, and comfortable
Composite body panels were awesome. A little touch up paint and 2000 grit paper, made for perfect sides
Awesome handling once the Firestone tires were replaced with a better brand

I kick myself for selling the car. I purchased a 00 Focus SE w/ Ztech, put 40,000 miles on it, and hated that car with a passion. It did nothing well. Gave it back to Ford... that's how bad I hated it.

My Saturn was the best new (or used) car I have ever owned. I will buy another one when finances permit.

I think the BMW service is good..... and mercedes was good too (from the place my dad got the SL500)
I don't think my dad was too impressed with the Jag people though

For what you pay at Mercede's, BMW, Volvo, Porsche, etc... the service had damn well better be excellent!

Hell, they ought to offer a complimentary butt cleaning with a LOF.

Some of us poor bastards have to stick with vehicles under $30,000 (U.S.)

Good to hear the crash turned out OK.
You cant argue with a story like that, but apparently Saturn agrees with you about the NVH (noise, vibration, harshness). That is what they are constantly trying to improve.

PS: Gang$tarr, how often do your front rotors need replacing??

I've only had my car for a year (got it for 16th B-Day) no need to replace the rotors yet... it's a 2000

my dad did take my car in for service a couple weeks ago, but i don't think he had the rotors done

I've heard that the rotors are replaced with the pads. apparently, the rotors get worn down to "provide the driver with exceptional brake feel" I dont know if its true, and I was just a little curious.

the guy that does service on my car said that you should replace them with the pads, something about preventing warping i think

More non turnable rotors??? What happened to the good old days when you could turn rotors and drums 3-4 times???

With all the advancements in pad material, you would think they could bring rotor chewing to a minimum.

yeah you can't turn them..... oh well, they don't cost that much

I'd rather see American cars on the road than all these little foreign junkers.

I work for saturn of bellevue and the storys i get from people about their saturn and how much they love them is amazing.
Ive hated all my car buying experiances until I bought my saturn so I can vouch for the reason why the tied with lexus in csi.
but also took first place in jd powers for service satisfaction, so I dont believe the duct tape story.

Can't please all the people all the time. But certain dealers go out of their way to try!!

There are only two places I will send my wife to get work done without me there. Saturn service dept. and Discount Tire.

I don't dare send her to either of the Ford dealerships in my area. That just turns into a head banging experiment every time.

I don't dare send her to either of the Ford dealerships in my area. That just turns into a head banging experiment every time.

Yah, the response is: "We were going to change teh rotors, but discovered that you had whacked the chunk of metal there, and we had to replace the transmission and head gasket" :eek: :confused: :D

My favorite was when they called her about 2 hrs after dropping off my truck. They told her it needed and oil change, transmission fluid change, rear end fluid change, and a full brake job.

The oil had been replaced two day prior and was still clear. And a week before that I had changed the tranny fluid and the rear end fluid with synthetic. When I got off work I went and checked the brakes and found they had about 50% pad left on all 4. The tech then stumbled, and tried to tell me that the grooves in the rotors and drums were going to cause a problem with the ABS system. I just shook my head, and told him that it was a good thing I wasn't working for the BAR or I'd write his ass up.

All this to get the wiper motor replaced under recall.

You turn around for half a second and they shaft you. Sorry man.

It just seems worse for the females.. They pretty much have to arm themselves with a lot of knowledge before dealing with most service departments. It's a shame, you would have thought that mentality died many moons ago.

Isn´t Saturn the least important brand in GM? Or is it Oldsmobile? I don´t know. I just know most drivers of Saturn are young drivers, I have many friends (ages 16-18) that drives SL and SC in USA. When did the company started? Around ´85? If so they´ve won costumers pretty fast.

Saturn celebrated 10years this year.

The town I live in has a lot of retired people living there. It would appear that the S series is the car of choice for them too. When you ask any of them how the feel about their car (you'd better be prepared for a long talk-- you know the elderly) they will tell you they love it. I think some of the popularity is that they can tow them behind their motorhomes with all 4 on the ground an not worry about burning up the automatic transmission

Originally posted by Euro19
When did the company started? Around ´85? If so they´ve won costumers pretty fast.

I think lexus won costumers pretty damn fast!

they started later than that... and look how popular lexus is now! unbelievable :D

Originally posted by gang$tarr


I think lexus won costumers pretty damn fast!

they started later than that... and look how popular lexus is now! unbelievable :D

Did you now...

Lexus sold 16302 cars in 1989. Executives from Mercedes-Benz said that de luxury brand of Toyota is not a threat. :eek:
In 1997 Lexus sold 97593 vehicles (that is the last year they were below a 6 digit number)
In 2000 Lexus sold 206037. It´s the first luxury brand to sell more than 200000 units per year in USA. :silly:

yeah lexus is so damn popular, they're everywhere!!

I had a '92 SL2... bought the car new and put 198,000 miles in 4-5 years before trading it in. In the entire time of ownership, I had these problems...

-factory recall on some fuse, took about 30 minutes to replace
-killed my transmission because I was trying to do donuts and it wouldn't... drove away super mad and slammed on the gas, hit ice, landed on a snow bank (I was 16, what do you expect?)
-engine mount was bad after a semi backed into it

I think I want another one... just a used one as a reliable beater.

Was I just lucky or is this the general experience of Saturn owners?

:frog:

Originally posted by UncleMeat777
Was I just lucky or is this the general experience of Saturn owners?

:frog:

I think your experience matches that of a large quantity of Saturn owners. I loved mine, and want another one. My wife keeps bugging me to go buy her a new one, but I want to wait until at least Christmas befoe I buy her a Vue, that way I can see what problems (if any) other owners are experiencing in a first year run of the vehicle.

Originally posted by UncleMeat777


Was I just lucky or is this the general experience of Saturn owners?

:frog: [/B]

My 96 Sc2 Has been to hell and back and it runs better that my Porsche with a completely rebuilt engine did and my jaguar which I am still trying to sell (Big suprise) I have put 15,000 mile on it since August of 02 and it still runs almost perfect.:D