Hey Nik,
Did you ever resolve the vibration/growl? Please Please Please post a response if you did because I have a similar problem. ////// I have a 1997 SL1 that growls and vibrates slightly as speed increases. Other than these two occurences, the car seems to handle well. I went to the nearest Saturn dealer and they diagnosed it as a "failing right front wheel bearing." They then quoted me an $795.00 price tag. The approximate breakdown was: $300.00 for the bearing; $400 for the labor; and $95.00 for the necessary re-alignment (They were nice enough to let me know that they would, however, deduct the $36.00 diagnostic fee that they charged me from the $795.00, bless their souls.). It all sounded a little surreal to me, but hey, they're the experts, right? YEAH... RIGHT! All that I can say is thank God that they didn't have the part in stock because you can well imagine my surprise when I drove to a local tire center chain and was quoted: $60.00 for the part; $120.00 for the labor; and $59.00 for the re-alignment. Calling Pep Boys reduced the bill to $34.99 for the part and $79.20 for the labor. I'm sorry but in my dazed state, I must admit that I forgot to ask them what kind of deal they were offering on alignments but I am sure that it isn't more than $40.00 or $50.00. ////// Now for what could be either the best or worst part... After doing some pretty extensive Web-sleuthing, I'm wondering if it is the bearing at all. It seems to me that the culprit is just as likely to be an inbalance in one or more of the tires/wheels. Now I guess that I will have wheels balanced first, and if the problem persists, I'll consider replacing the bearing. I read on one post that due to the fact that hubs are assumed to be balanced, tires these days are balanced independent of the car. If this is true, then I can always chalk up my my balancing of the tires to preventative maintenence even if they're not the problem seeing as they should remain balanced even after any re-alignment that would be performed as part of the possible wheel bearing replacement regimen. //// So tell me someone, is there any chance that balancing the tires without also having the wheels aligned is of any value? I would like to think that due to my current perception of my car's seemingly "good" alignment, that balancing without re-alignment might have some value, and might reveal the problem to have been an imbalance all along, but I just don't know if this is the case or not. HEP ME. HEP ME PLEEZ!