Is this true??

[Stace1967]

My little sister is thinking about buying a Saturn (her first car) and I was told that work on them can only be done at the dealership, and that oil changes are in the neighborhood of $200?? I have never heard of that and am wondering if I received bogus information or not...any comments and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!!!

[sierrap615]

i have heard of some problems on the ION Redline. it will cost around $80 or $100 because it takes over 7 quarts of synthetic oil. that alone is about 35-40 dollars i'm guessing. the filter is another $10-12. that is near $50 without labor, plus a buck or two more for toping off fluids. say they charge 0.5 hours for an oil change at $95/hour (common rate in my area). there is another $40. add taxes, dispoisial fee, ect... and you have $100 oil change. i know a few places that offer $9.99 oil chances. quite a profit loss for the oil shop. to throw another log on the fire, if you see where the oil filter is on the Redline, you would swear you would need rip apart half of the engine to get to it. in reality, its a tight fit, but nothing need removed, save the oil filter cover. however, the filter cover needs a certain sized socket to be removed, but this is true for all ecotec engines for the last 5 years. sounds like alot of problems. but nothing to hard, you can do it yourself. but double check with saturn before you do, just incase of warrenty issues.

for models other then the ION Redline - i have heard some people having issues with some shops not working on saturns for some bogus reason like they are hard to work on. thats bull. they are infact some of the easiest cars to work on. search this forum and saturnfans.com and you will find out how easy and simple many repairs are, i only consider a few repairs dealer-only, but even then, someone with the right skill and tools can fix it themselfs.

[mysatilac]

Wal-Mart around here (Texas) will do a full synthetic oil change for $35 flat rate, your choice of oil. Just got my SL1 done, and chose the new Mobil 1 EP (w/15,000 mile protection, although I'll probably change it out at ~6,000)
BTW I don't exactly "trust" WalMart with my car, but it would cost me the same or more for supplies, they save me the time and hassle of doing it myself since my driveway is slanted,
One time my car was leaking afterwards I went and talked to a manager and got it straightened out right away (they had forgotten to put the washer on my drainplug, but replaced it)

Originally Posted by sierrap615

but double check with saturn before you do, just in case of warranty issues.