well this is a good bye and good luck to the rest of you. I just thought I'd post what happened to my 02 saturn in case the old boys at gm want to know why their saturn division (at least) has tanked. I put very little millage on my saturn this year, less than 9000 k. It's always been serviced at saturn dealerships by their mechanics.Took it in for a scheduled oil change back in early spring and a few days later had a reverse slam problem which I was informed was caused by 2 burned out solenoids- (2 at once, hmmmm) I had all 3 replaced with new ones at a hefty price. Last week I took my car in for a regular oil change, new tires, wipers and tune up. We got the car back and drove about 30 kms home after. The total distance since the previous fill up was 80 kms, the tank showed half full ( this was later confirmed when I was able to put 20L in the tank) The next day was nice, I wanted to take the kids out to the park to feed some squirrels and the service engine light came on, and the car refused to go in reverse to back out of my parking spot. And no, the emergency brake was not on. I tried a few times to see if restarting or shifting made any difference- it didn't. I had to push the car backwards to be able to drive down to the saturn dealership to see what the hell was going on. I left the car running with the service engine light on so they could see what the problem code was. I got a loaner and was able to pick up the car at the end of the day. When I got the car, it was running, seemed ok and the mechanics said the car checked out fine they couldn't find anything wrong with it. Well, it ran ok- so i took it straight to another auto maker's dealership and got a trade-in value for a new car.which I am quite happy with. I should mention that following my discovery of the faulty repair I got on the phone with the manager at the saturn dealership and was quite blunt pointing out how much return service I needed with the minor mileage incurred. How much money I had paid out in service charges- and the car was never crashed, not ever driven hard, always fully serviced by the books. I don't know what happened, but I do know the saturn dealership has had very slow business since last year at least- and i suspect the techs were trying to "influence" my car's service requirements. So now they lost- because I no longer have a saturn to take to them, and I expect I will buy another 3 or 4 cars yet in the years to come, and my wife perhaps
2 more cars- and not one will ever be a saturn again, and likely never a gm built car either. So when those techs get their pink slips and stand waiting in the line, perhaps they will see me drive by in my shiny new car and recognize they earned that unemployment check.yes, revenge is sweet and the best revenge is to live well and drive a new car. and it ain't a saturn.