Hard to diagnose electrical (or electronic) problem.

You've got some good clues there, based on what does and doesn't work when you're having a problem. (Be sure to make detailed notes of this next time.) The various circuits are double-fused: There are several master fuses and each master fuse has eight or so smaller fuses (each a separate circuit) under it.

First thing to check is if everything failing is on the same master fuse. (I think the circuits on each fuse may even be listed in the owner's manual.) If it's a single fuse then the first thing to do is to replace the fuse. If the fuse doesn't seem to fit tightly then someone will need to disassemble the fuse box (pull all the fuses and remove some screws) and tighten the little widgets that hold each fuse in place. (I've tried buying new little widgets but can't convince Saturn to sell them to me.)

If it doesn't all trace down to a fuse then a ground is suspect. First off, both battery cables should be removed AT BOTH ENDS, the connections cleaned, and reinstalled. The ground strap between engine and body should similarly be removed, connections cleaned, and reinstalled.

There are also some ground straps > A couple of weekends ago I took my 1999 SL2 in for regular service and

What makes me think that its not a fuse is its intermittency. If a fuse went, it should just simply have an open circuit and that would be it until the fuse was replaced.

I agree with this but I might try jiggling the fuses the next time this happens. I'll also look in the manual and see if the various failures all lead to the same fuse. I should mention that the 3 short horn beeps that occurred when I unlocked it is not normal behaviour. The normal behaviour is simply to unlock. I'm thinking that the beeps may be some kind of error code from the computer, maybe indicating that it rebooted or something. So the computer may be losing power or there may be some kind of electronic failure.

You can have a bad contact with the fuse, especially if the "little widget" is sprung and not gripping tightly.

But an electronic failure wouldn't cause the radio to lose it's presets -- the radio should be wired directly to an "always hot" circuit.

That could happen........in that case you would have to pull the fuses though instead of just checking for a blown one.

Best bet would be to see if all problem circuits are on the same maxi fuse.......

Yep. But if the fuse contacts are the problem then just "futzing with" the fuse will probably clear up the problem temporarily.

Makes sense. Maybe the radio and the computer are both losing power.

My two cents:

Sounds to me like the battery voltage fell below the computer and radio's minimum threshold to retain their volatile memory so they got reset. This could be caused by a bad battery (how old is it? If original, it's 5 years old... and should be replaced) or a charging system/electrical problem (bad alternator/voltage regulator?)

With all of the electronics and computers used these days, you can get some strange behavior when the battery isn't putting out the nominal (13.8V) voltage. If it falls below 12V, you can see some funny things happen.

Good luck.

Bob

That's correct. Even when it wouldn't start, the horn and headlights had plenty of power. Half an hour later, everything was working fine and it started with no difficulty. I'm taking it back to the dealer today. It's started happening frequently enough that they should be able to reproduce the problem. Hopefully they can then figure out what's wrong.

Yeah, usually when a battery goes bad it stays bad, so you won't have it fail to work and then work 10 minutes later. But occasionally you get a bad inter-cell connection or some such in the battery and it acts just like a bad ground or bad battery terminal connection -- bad one minute and then seemingly fine 10 minutes later.

However, I believe the radio and computer are probably designed to hold their memory down to 10V or so. They have to > My two cents:

Well, they had it for several days and told me that they hadn't been able to exactly reproduce the problem but that weird things did happen when they wiggled the battery connections. They tightened the connections and gave me the car back. The first thing I noticed was that the radio still had all of my presets. That made me skeptical since EVERY time it acted weird for me it lost all of the presets. It started acting weird again after a day. Two times it wouldn't start for me, the locks didn't work, the dome light didn't work, and the remote didn't work. Both times I wiggled all of the passenger compartment fuses and everything started working (It's possible that this was coincidental to playing with the fuses). Saturday evening the remote wouldn't unlock the doors. Wiggling the fuses didn't fix this. When I tried to start it, it cranked without starting for several tries, then for several more tries it started ran (very roughly) for a few seconds, then stopped. Then finally it started and continued running. I've only tried it a couple of times since then and it starts and runs but the remote no longer functions at all. I'm calling the dealer Monday morning. I don't recall if I've ever replaced the car's battery so I will ask them about that.

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Well I don't have any problems now, but in Colonie NY (Saturn of Albany) there has never been an occasion that when we brought the 99 SL1 in for a problem that the service department stated they could find nothing wrong. It seems to be they just want to sell the vehicles to you but not really service them.

On the other hand a friend of mine is a service manager at another place and he finds the problems and fixes them. And he had to go out and purchase tools to just analyze the car since they normally don't see many Saturn's. It is a shame that service has degraded to this level.

But they want you to have oil changes and inspections done at their dealerships. Why bother when they cannot fix the product they sell.

Elector

I thought that I should post a follow up to this in case anyone is following it or has similar problems. They replaced the fuse box and all of the problems vanished. It's worked perfectly ever since. The only issue is that the remotes no longer work at all. This is probably because the electrical problems caused the computer to get out of sync with the remotes. I'm taking it in this Saturday to have them reprogrammed. Once that's fixed it should be 100%. Everything was covered by my extended warranty so, other than the repeated inconvenience, I'm not too unhappy about the incident.