Don't Buy a Saturn

I've got a '93 SC2. My dad purchased it new, it was his now it's mine. Yeah, it was free. Great car? It's reliable, doesn't rust, and it's not horridly bad to work on. It's lasted 215,000 miles and needs some component replacement as a result (the water pump died this week. Not bad, but we knew it was going, so we put a new one in). Great car? It's been reliable. I hate the mileage it gets (still low 20s), it's got no real power, but it does the job. I like high power:weight ratios, so an economy car doesn't really make sense for me. I'd hate a Japanese car too. I DESPISE the small buzzy inline 4!!!

Anyway, I can't say it's a BAD car, just not the kind of car I like. But it goes and was reasonably priced, and it's not rusting away (unlike the wagon it replaced:( ).

Given it's been reliable, and stayed in reasonably good condition all these years, I can't say "don't buy one". But it's not the car for me and I know it. Maybe I'm a bit hard on it as a result.

I've heard horror stories from every make/model of car / bike*. With so many made, you're bound to have a pissed customer.

*Friend lost an oil pump on his Honda, that was the end of the engine. Nothing to rebuild. Swayed him into getting a Harley...

Lower intake manifold gasket Leak mean anything to a GM V6 owner? How does MR Goodwrench feel about these motors?

Sorry to go off topic, but couldn't resist under the circumstance. I have a

98 SC2 that I am a little less that fond of, but it was a repo and I didn't expect the world of it. It serves the purpose and the price was right.

We'll I guess I just have a bad car. I bought mine used also.

If it's not the SES light, it's the headlight flutter, now it's the rotors need resurfacing after I bought them last year from Saturn. Now I guess I have to take it to a private garage and get the rotors resurfaced.

What kills me the most is Saturn is unwilling to take responsibility for their own screw ups. I have now started a campaign against Saturn. I'll start with the BBB and work my way up.

"KC2KSZ" wrote in inimitable style:

I'm pretty pissed at the '98 SL2 now sitting parked in front of the house. I bought it used at 107K nine months and 16,000 miles ago, paid $5500 (+450 use tax), and one transmission shop says he can fix it up for $4000, but he tells me, "if I were you, rid yourself of this and get another car." I figure that I have made an average $630 per month payment to drive this car, which I hoped to get at least two years out of.

I can hardly blame Saturn though. I bought this car from a guy who used a "conditioner" in the transmission and there was a delay in kicking into reverse. God knows who else drove the thing and how they abused it in the 107K miles prior to that. Had I taken it to a mechanic at purchase time, he probably would have stopped me from buying, saying the transmission might be hanging by a thread. Somebody tells me it builds character to take a bath at least once on a used car purchase.

By the way: does anyone know if the Coolant Temp Sensor is polarized, or if there is only one way to put the wire snap assembly on the sensor? I changed this, and along with the transmission problems, I seem to have an unexplained loss of electrical power. Before I jump the thing, I want to make sure I have no shorts or leaks. I can think of only two sources of the problem: (1) I snapped in the CTS reversed---altered polarity? or (2) I didn't tighten the negative cable proerly (I disconnected to change the CTS).

Oh, and how do I suspect the auto transmission is having problems? The shop said that the OBD codes gave the following reports: "1st gear ratio" problem, "2nd gear ratio" problem (whatever all that means), "transmission overheat", "cooling system overheat". He didn't run down all the codes, and I don't have a scanner.

Common problem on Saturns. Needs a new valve body. Take it to a Saturn dealer - they'll know about it. Do a search on "valve body" for this news group.

Get the tranny looked at by someone who understands Saturns first, before you write off the transmission. Please?

CTS is a thermister. They're not polarized. It matters not which direction the electrons flow through it. The connector might be, but it really doesn't matter.

When the CTS does go, often it dies because it leaked. If this is the case, replace the connector also (because it will be corroded and will not make good contact).

A few things to check:

1) Make sure that the battery cables are not corroded. 2) Make sure that you don't have too long of a bolt in the terminal. If you do, and then you tighten it down, it bottoms out, cracks the connector, and causes problem #1 above.

A few things to check:

1) The Saturn has a spin-on transmission filter, so it is really easy to drain and replace the transmission fluid & filter. That would be a good idea from the start. 2) The alternators on Saturns go. Often, the alternator light doesn't go on when they do. The junk that they put on the power line totally confuses computers. This might be what you have.

If the alternator is going, do yourself a favor, and replace both the alternator and the battery.

Whoopie. Put that buizzbomb next to a Mustang and see how cool it sounds. Or, more exactly, hear how cool a Mustang sounds when it's been worked and the driver gets on it...

And having driven them, they suck Vs the American V motors I've driven. Sorry, but Detroit still builds them better, IMHO. If I wanted a good inline four, Japanese. Inline 6, German, V6 or V8, American.

...not that Ken can't speak for himself, I just wanted to toss in that from my observation he's far from an idiot.

The original post said nothing of a particular car, it suggested not considering a Saturn, any Saturn, period - then went on to not suggest any particular Japanese car (nor define what his interpretation is of Japanese; content?, assembly?, country where taxes are paid?). This manner of dramatic spewing by the original poster can easily fall under Trollage - which could be corrected if the originator cared to reply with specifics.

What's the old saying about the shortest distance between two points? ...a straight line. Ken drew the line, that's all.

My 2 cents...

Uh, I don't believe Honda was trying to make my car sound "cool". I believe they were trying to keep it as quiet as possible at lower rpms, without being too "buzzy" or thrashy at higher rpms. Considering it's only a 1.6L, I think they did a damn good job with it.

If I drove a Mustang (GT or better), I wouldn't want it to be as quiet as possible, silly.

No doubt, but how did we go from 4-bangers to Mustangs?

But ok, let's talk Mustangs.

I have very high hopes for the new Mustang. My guess is that the big goofy fake GT hood scoop is outta here, along with the flat seats and rubbery shifter. Have you seen the new F-150 interior? Ford is really taking interiors serious these days and my guess is that the new Mustang, which will be getting an absolutely gorgeous retro-looking body, is going to get a well worked-over interior.

The new Mustang is the only "affordable" car I have any interest in at all right now. Can't wait to see one in person.

Well, I don't know because I haven't driven them all so I'll have to take your word for it. My point was that you said, "I'd hate a Japanese car too. I DESPISE the small buzzy inline 4!!!", though Japanese doesn't automatically = 4-banger. At least, not like it did 2 decades ago.

BTW, Honda's 3.5L pulls my brother's Odyssey pretty good. I'm sure it's going to pull the smaller Vue even better.

...the 1.6 pre vtech sounds sweet wound to 7k and beyond (to me) - and I still think the resonator-in-the-middle-and-the-muffler-at-the-end design contributes to the buzziness, especially when a high flow muffler replaces the oem unit. I'm guessing the design accommodate more interior space - sort of like the change in the Civic's front end chassis that gave more cabin space (or was it room in the engine bay?) and that everyone cried about because it was less sophisticated...

Since I'm digressing anyway... I was watching something on TV about elevators and how important to the Japanese that an elevator operates smoothly and quietly versus their American counterparts who didn't care about all that as long as it was fast (interestingly to me, Mitsubishi has the fastest elevator - must of been a spin off from the Zero engineering team of WWII... wink).

I haven't been in a Mustang in years - the next gen does look nice in print. I think the Honda V6 in the VUE will be interesting too.

Wink wink!

The Japanese zero design was a stolen design from Hughes Aircraft Company.

In fact, it is the ONLY airplane that Hughes Aircraft Company designed that ever went into full production.

(Hughes was, until Boeing bought us, the premier satellite company in the world.)

Yup. ALL of Hughes was owned by GM.

The defense part got sold off to Raytheon (a bunch of dishonest bastards if I ever saw some (in my opinion)) in 97.

The satellite part got sold off to Boeing in 2001(?). Boeing is a good company to work for.

I worked for Hughes, got bought by Ratco, transferred back to Hughes Space & Communications, and now work for Boeing.

Gotten GM discounts on 5 Saturns along the way...

interesting

at least i'm not here to sell people auto parts!

the salesman, the "true troll"

New, good quality rotors are cheap enough to not bother with the resurfacing. The rotors are so thin to begin with that resurfacing greatly increases the chance of subsequent warping.

Ken

...I think we've got something Hughes/Boeing down this way (maybe one of the beach cities like Carlsbad - can't remember). Cool about the discounts too.

you can't expect too much from a General Motors product. all they care about is the bottom line.

Yeah, I was with Hughes when they were owned by the Hughes Medical Institute. They had huge tax benefits by being owned by HMI. Somebody thought that was unfair and sued forcing the sale of Hughes Aircraft. GM bought the whole thing lock, stock and barrel. I remember GM threw a big party for the LA based Hughes sites by renting out Disneyland for several days.

I bought a '93 Saturn for my mother using the GM discount. Hughes Aircraft become Hughes Electronics and then GM ended up selling the defense part of Hughes to Raytheon during the "rationalizataion" of the defense industry after the end of the cold war. They retained the satellite business until they finally sold it to Boeing. Today, it's nothing like it used to be. Hughes used to be hailed as the "Cadillac" of the defense industry. It developed and built cutting edge products way ahead of knowledge curve of the time. It was great working for them back then.

Hughes (or Raytheon now) had a Carlsbad site, but I don't know the disposition of that site now. I don't think it's operating any longer.

I've never heard of the Zero coming from a Hughes design. Hmm, interesting.

Can't you folks trim your posts? Jesus H. Christ on a unicycle!