I haven’t seen a Saturn Aura in quite a while, yet it’s only been just over twelve years since it was last sold.
There’s eleven of them on this rig, which is pretty much the maximum modern car carriers can hold, although with the growing size of cars, ten is now the typical maximum. A couple of decades ago, 12 -14 car rigs were not uncommon. No wonder destination charger keep going up!
Short answer- the Junkyard. Most of the later Saturns were blown out cheaply when things went tits up circa 2008. I was amazed how many Aura’s and Astra’s were sitting in the yard earlier this year. Each had 200K km or more and were used until something major went (I.e. Ecotec 4 cylinders, six speed trannies), and then dumped, rinse, and repeat. Probably all driving Nissan’s or Kia’s these days.
I have a 2008 XE with the 3500 V6 4 speed transmission that I bought for $900 bucks from a young lady in pristine condition body and interior previous owner was an elderly retiree female who always had it dealer serviced it had developed the typical no crank no start condition caused by the copper network in the main fuse box and was throwing diagnostic codes OBD 2 P01682 and P0685 I’ve replaced the fuse box with a new one from eBay and a new starter and new positive and negative ground cable and on the first turn of the key the damn car fired right up with no hesitation after sitting for 2 and half years lol 😂
Well, to be fair, how many of its platform mates Pontiac G6s or 2010 Malibus do you still see? These have all been used up by now…
I still see lots of that gen Malibu and quite a few G6s. I guess they just sold more of those to start with.
I also see Malibus occasionally. Very few G6s and almost no Auras. In all fairness, Auras were never common in my area, even when new. Strangely I still see Astras limping along once in a while.
A co-worker had an Malibu. It had 300,000-ish miles on it when he got rid of it due a bad coolant leak. It had no rust or oil leaks. The leather seats still looked nice, but the black buttons on the dash had worn down and turned white and some of the power windows did not work.
GM interior quality at the time still needed work.
All white? Reeks of a fleet order, maybe governmental. I used to see these at the county auction up until 2018. County vehicles age out at 10 years, regardless of mileage/condition, so after 2018 they were all gone.
Auras went to BHPH after 4-5 years and beat to junk. Low resale from orphaned brand name does that. Last new ones were sold over 13 years ago, they weren’t as desired in used market as pick-ups. And, the Saturn ‘purists’ only cared about plastic body paneled models.
Still see a few 2008-12 Malibus as “beaters” and some good condition ones owned by mature folks. G6’s are fading away, were popular beaters for a while, but ‘circle of car life’ goes on.
A few weeks ago there was a fatal accident on a local highway, and the story mentioned that one of the vehicles involved was a Pontiac G6. The story reminded me that it had been a long time since I had actually seen one.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a Saturn Aura. Even the Malibus from that era are now a rare sight. Still see Accords, Camrys and even Fusions from that era on the road.
I was just noticing a couple Auras I spotted within the last week. The fact that I noticed them I guess implies that my brain thought they were noteworthy for their relative rarity. I see tons of Malibus from this era still.
I have a strong memory of a friend who bought a new Aura and was showing it off to us. It was dark silver/gray with very sharp saddle-colored leather seats. Nice car. As I recall he drove the snot out of it for a few years on long commutes, then traded it after a few years on an SUV for their growing family. I don’t remember him ever complaining about it.
A quick look at production shows that Saturn sold about 60k a year for 2007-08. Compare to the Malibu’s 120-180k for 07-09, then jumping up to about 200k for the next several years. That would explain why I see so many more Malibus. It would seem that Chevrolet picked up the extra sales from the cancelled Aura after 2009.
I think both of them are some of the most attractive sedans GM has made in the recent past.
I also saw an Aura just yesterday, slate gray, looking very sharp and well-kept. But they were never common.
I have one of the related Malibus and it’s heartening to see a few others on the road. My impression is the six-speed automatics are the big weak point, and if they go, not many would want to spend the money on a repair. I’ve had mine since new and have been careful about fluid changes, so maybe it will be all right awhile longer. I’m just not that excited about most of the new cars, not at the prices being charged, at any rate.
I feel the same way, in that I have an ’11 Malibu with the 6cyl and 42K miles on it, and would like to hang on to it for the foreseeable future, due to the lack of replacement cars out there. I originally wanted an Impala, but the Malibu was in great shape with low mileage. There is a G6 in the background with the 3.9L and 6 speed that is keeping it company.
Even here in Saturn land Auras are a rare sight. Really any Saturn now days is a rare sight.
The Saturn factory in Spring Hill TN was about 10 miles away from where I grew up. Saturns were EVERYWHERE around in these parts in the 90’s and 00’s. Almost all of them were the compact S series cars. Saw a few of those Equinox clone SUVs, but they are a rare sight today. Tells me they were kinda junk cause I still see a lot of 15-20 year old Honda CR-V and Toyota Rav4s around
Not that many “Aura’s actually sold, relatively speaking. Wasn’t one of the “Pontiac line”, the sister ship?
We have one of those “Saturn convertibles”that was also marketed as a “Pontiac” here in the neighborhood.
It sits outside though, no garage. Expect it’s deteriorating. At present, looks good.
GM seemed to be turning Saturn into an ”Oldsmobile replacement” brand, after 2004, with rebadges. Maybe the Aura was meant to be later Intrigue?
Maybe they were on their way to Oprah to give away…
No, wait, those were G-6s.
11 (seemingly) identical white sedans on the same transporter – almost certainly going to a rental or corporate fleet, or perhaps for decaling up in some way.
Interesting to see this a car that was based on an Opel/Vauxhall but in a form Europe did not get. The long wheelbase form only came as the Vectra estate and Malibu Maxx-like Signum; the saloon and hatch were both on the shorter wheelbase.
Not rental IMO, as rental car companies usually have a variety of colors as long as they’re popular and non-polarizing, meaning grey, charcoal, silver, dark red, sometimes blue. Dark green if they’re adventurous and it’s available. There are certainly many white rental cars, but white-only means there’s going to be a name of a business or government entity printed on the sides.
These were a rare sight in my part of California when new, and rarer – as in non-existent – now. Malibu’s and G6’es are far more common, and just yesterday I saw a Malibu Classic, which must have been an ex-rental. The Saturn SL2 and Vue were popular here and just seem to keep on ticking, as they are a daily sighting, especially the SL2. Far more noticeable on the roads than other GM J Cars.
One night about 5 years ago, I was filling up the car with gas, and a black Saturn Aura pulled up to the other side of the pump. While filling up, the driver struck up a conversation with another customer, and I overheard him say he had over 300K miles on his Aura, and that as long as it kept running, why get a new car. That Aura is probably gone now, but I was impressed.
Could have been the last Aura I’ve seen.
For all the talk about homogenized interiors, I do remember that high level Auras could be had with a really stylish interior treatment. Even as they were going bankrupt, that interior looked like money to me. It’ll halo the whole car when something gorgeous like that can catch eyes in the showroom.
The most recent time I’ve been wowed by something like that from an unexpected way was in a 2014 Cruze diesel. It had a “Cocoa & Cashmere” interior that batted way out of the league of the car.
There’s a black Aura that sounds pretty beat at the apt house next door, and I saw a Malibu today, but the only G6 I’ve noticed in years was a convertible.
My boss traded an ’03 GTO 6 spd for a 4 cyl. ’08 Malibu auto but found it boring and got a Mustang after a couple of years. His commute was a hundred yards. What was he thinking?
By its last year the the Aura was actually a pretty decent car. Typical of GM. Give a vehicle the ax as soon as it’s finally improved – i.e. Fiero.
My post seems to have disappeared, so I’ll put it here. The early Auras were absolutely the best. They changed almost nothing during production, except the pretty reliable OHV 3.5 available for the first 2 years was eliminated and only the extremely failure prone 2.4 Ecotec and 3.6 DOHC were available after that. Engine failure is most likely what has taken almost all Auras off the road.
Because GM loves selling junk that’s the real so many Americans stopped buying American cars and fled to the Japanese brands an are now loyal to Honda and Toyota my mother swears she would never buy another piece of crap from Detroit and hates anything GM makes my family’s get togethers look like a California Honda meet at the last one I counted 16 multiple generations of accords and civics even an ultra rare last model year prelude including 2 new Toyota Camrys now that alone tells me why I see so many Americans driving Honda’s and Toyota’s on the road than GM cars !!!
Well for what it’s worth I can report the equivalent Europeans (Opel Vectra, Saab 9-3 and 9-5 and the EU-spec Cadillac BLS) have too mostly disappeared from our curbsides. Yes, they did sell in lower numbers than VWs and Skodas but I’m not entirely sure this explains their rarity – like the Saturn, a better explanation is mechanical frailty and the fact they are all seen as “orphans” with spare parts worries.
Still pretty common in Europe in my opinion, as a former owner of the wagon I can say they are simple and pretty reliable cars and the Vectra wagon is a loadmaster.
Pic for you many wagonlovers.
Most of the comments center on how popular Auras were and how well they held onto their value, but the reason these are gone is because almost all of them had engines with fatal design flaws.
The base engine for a year or 2 was the 3.5 High Value V6, which is the only good engine ever offered. Later, an Ecotec 2.4 was introduced on the low end which is the same design used in Equinoxes, Malibus, Terrains, etc., which starts burning oil and never stops, pretty quickly seizing itself. The up-option was the 3.6 High Feature pre-DI which had a near 100% failure rate of stretched timing chains, as well as a PCV system design flaw leading to heavy oil use. This was also pre-DEXOS oil so, despite having oil change monitor programming only calling for oil changes every 6-8,000 miles, there was no oil recommendation other than 5W30. And GM wouldn’t even fix engines for free in many of the brands and nameplates thst continued, let alone a brand they killed off, as the engines failed. So, basically, 80-90% of production came with either of 2 engines with a near 100% failure rate, and due to the brand being killed off neither GM nor most owners cared about the cars past the warranty period.
We had scads of these dumped into the rental fleets when they hit the market. Literal seas of them, in all trims and engines, but the single most common was the later XR 4 cylinders with pretty much every option except navigation, the V6 and its bigger wheels. We had some of those, too, and the base ones. At some point, maybe starting in 2008, the 3.5 was eliminated completely and the two failure prone engines were the only options, including in the rare mild hybrid (which just had the 2.4).
The CC effect hit me and I saw a beater Aura on the freeway yesterday. My BIL bought a new back then and I thought that it was a nicely styled car. He traded up to a bigger vehicle as his needs changed. The Aura is easy to overlook unless you’re attuned to see one. I haven’t seen a Saturn Sky convertible in a long time but those and it’s brother the Solstice catch my eye every time.
The Sterling truck pulling this load of orphans is also an orphan, it may have outlasted the load it is carrying. We still have many Sterling’s up here plowing snow, seen one earlier this winter that is a 2004. Great truck killed by Mercedes Benz.
The Aura had a sharp look to it for the time but had the two-fold problem of competing vs other GM products as well as outside makers. I would have been a good target for one of these but instead I cross shopped the G6 against the Altima I ended up with. I didn’t see either Pontiac or Saturn facing the grim reaper in 2008 though.
None of the post-A midsize cars seemed to replace its cockroach status as an older car (the W Century maybe a bit). I see very few 97-04 Malibus on the road considering it still was a big seller. The ’04-07? is nonexistent. G6s sold well but they have faded fast compared to the Japanese competition and Fusions in terms of still being in use. And I would have to look hard to find an Aura.
The late N Body Malibu, like its Grand Am and Alero cousins, had some pretty major rust issues (mostly the rear wheel wells), heavy fleet sales which destroyed residuals, and the lower intake gasket-affected 3100 V6 (the others had the 3400 version). Considering its relatively lower sales, the more recent production of the Epsilon box Malibu means despite continued rust issues (Epsilon cars all had poorly rust-proofed rockers and plastic rocker covers that hold nastiness against the metal), its more robust drivetrains (well, the 2.2 and 3.5; the SS 3.9 was the self-destructing DOD version) mean it survives in much higher relative numbers, at least in my area of PA. The following, good looking long wheelbase Espilon Malibu and following returned-to-short wheelbase awkward Malibu mostly have the much more failure prone 2.4 and 2.5 Ecotecs, 3.6 first gen HFV6, or the early 2.0t. Some of the attractive body style Malibus came with 3.5 HVV6s, but it was rare and availability seems to be spotty year to year. The G6, thanks to seemingly 80% of its volume being base V6 or GT models with the robust 3.5, appears to be the survivor of the trio. For 2005 and 2006, a 3.5 was the base G6 engine, with the up-option being the DOD 3.9. Then, the 2.4 was introduced for 2007, and the 3.6 DOHC replaced the 3.9 OHV as the GTP up-option, al 3 of which had widespread major issues. But the heavy 3.5 use in the G6, despite its lower than Malibu but better than Aura sales numbers, means it has the best relative survival rate.
If the engines are so failure prone, then how did the 2 examples mentioned in the comments make to over 300k miles?
Our oldest son leased a grey Aura with a tobacco brown leather interior… a good looking car in my estimation. He had few problems, but moved on (to a VW CC) when the lease was up.
Who would want to see that boring appliance? Never even noticed them when they were new. Talk about ugly and plain.
I rescued a 2008 Saturn Aura XE from the crusher earlier this year.
It had 47 service records. The only reason why it was even at a nearby charity auction was because the owners couldn’t find a replacement transmission shifter cable for it. That took me a couple of days to track down and I ended up upgrading the bushings so that the next owner wouldn’t have to worry about dealing with GM’s cheap plastic fetish.
It has the 3.5 Liter V6. A surprisingly nice daily driver as far as pre-bankruptcy GM models go if you can believe it. Visibility is borderline atrocious, and I did a $450 ‘scuff and shoot’ paint job to hide the Georgia paint burn.
If you live where the roads are smooth and do a lot of highway driving, I can see it surviving for another five to seven years. Not sure about enjoying the experience. But it will do the job until you want it to.
But it will do the job until you want it to go away forever.
Steven; nice to see you here! It’s been a while.
Hope all is well with you.