image: P. Niedermeyer
I always viewed this car as punishment for my previous idiotic act with the BMW E12. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Saturns (or any car in general, really) but at 245k…well, to say this car was used up would be a gross understatement. I got this car for free from a friend, but I still feel as if I paid too much (I really do appreciate the act of kindness on their part, however). In addition to this, it was my first automatic-equipped vehicle, which made me feel a little hatred towards it right off the bat.
I begrudgingly admitted to liking quite a few things about the car (It had good acceleration, decent handling, a crisp-shifting transmission, and a HUGE sunroof) but that was far from enough to distract me from the absolutely horrible interior material quality, the deafening squeaks and rattles, and the oil-burning/overheating motor. It had to go, and it did for $600. It’s sad really; if it had been a five-speed, had lower mileage, was a different color than the vomit-purple it was, and was more adequately screwed together, it would have been a very nice car.
A friend of mine from high school had a 3rd-gen SL1. The interior was literally the cheapest and most uncomfortable I’ve ever had to ride in.
I second everything you wrote about this car.
I owned a low mileage 95 with the twin cam engine. I couldn’t stand driving it on the interstate because the road noise coupled with the poor interior build quality drove me nuts.
I sold the Saturn and bought an 85 Camry 5dr with 170,000 miles and it was a much more tolerable car.
I had two 97 SL1 (at different times) as pile the miles on commuters while the good cars collected dust.
Dead reliable, always 40mpg, never burned oil (I was lucky, the second one I purchased had an amsoil oil filter on it when I bought it with 117K miles..put another 100K on in 2 years and it never ate any oil between 10k mile oil changes)
One was really solid with no squeaks or rattles, the other one felt like every screw had been taken out of the interior and things were just kind of balanced in place as it rattled its way down the highway.
bad headlights, lousy heat, handled good, ok acceleration (both 5 speeds) and ok a/c.
I drove both from NH to Detroit a few times non stop. Not the most comfortable choice, and loud, but got me there an back cheaply.
Do I want another? NO. Do I think they are durable little beasts…yes. Something that may be a good vintage ride for my future children when they first get their license…
Fine products such as this Saturn have only cemented GM as the world-leading designer and builder of exemplary automobiles. Indeed, the Saturn is the vehicle that catapulted GM to be the world’s most valuable company. The dividends on GM stock are so good that I can live comfortably on them.
Thanks, GM!
Better be careful or you might hurt yourself with those deep and inciteful comments you typically share.
You really need to start putting a signature after every comment that says “blah blah blah I hate GM blah blah, hate…”
Thanks for the lunchtime chuckle.
Certainly, GM’s prowess and engineering know-how have made it the most profitable corporation in the world. How could one “bash” such monumental prowess and success?
I am heading to the Saturn store right now!
I heard Plymouth is running a sale also..might want to check them out.
I’ll stop there after I visit the Pontiac showroom!
I want my father’s Oldsmobile!!
Awful car, the wheels fell of the minute I drove it off the lot, then it charged dirty 1-900 calls to my Amex and it took my mother out for a nice seafood dinner and never called her again.
Better?
Cause you’re kinda coming off like an asshole.
LOL…thanks for the laugh, Carmine.
I drove one of these once with about 50k miles on it and was surprised at the number of squeaks and rattles. I couldn’t imaging what one with 245k miles sounds like.
I think what you needed was some period of no car ownership and/or access after your “idiotic act” with the E12 BMW. With sufficiently long period of such existence, I believe you would have had a whole different kind of appreciation for the little Saturn.
I agree with MrWhopee. I think you were spoiled by the Beemer and anything after that will just be inferior. Try walking and dealing with the public transit for awhile and you will appreciate this car – any car – that runs and gets you where you’re going. I mean we should all be so lucky; a FREE car after all. Silly analogy, but after Mom’s home cooking, cold MRE’s out in the field in the USMC can suck, but at least they get the job done and keep you from going hungry.
Interesting coincidence, my brother drives the EXACT same car, as punishment for completely destroying the very nice Ford I gave him. The only difference is the odometer disintegrated when Enron did. We estimate its got 350,000 miles on it. It’ll only start if you bang on the starter with a rock and there is no floor under the carpet in the back seat, but the power windows, locks, and mirrors all work great!
~Jim
Whenever I think of one of these (which is seldom, thankfully) I think of that odd purplish brown color. A car like this has some value, however, to set some kind of baseline for acceptable transportation. Something that starts and runs and gets you somewhere, and anything else that works properly or feels good is a bonus.
My ’96 SL2 has 182k and only has one little squeak I think is coming from the fold down rear seats. Yes the road noise is loud, but no worse than my friend’s ’07 Mazdaspeed 6
Had a 92 SL1 with 5 Speed. Not much power, but would get 35 MPG running 85-90 and 40+ if you kept it at 65 or less. Felt pretty secure for a small car at 90 MPH. Kept it for 3.5 years. No problems except for power window switch. Don’t remember it being overly noisy but did have lots of hard plastic in interior. Sister has 97 SC 2 auto and it went 220k on original engine and 3 years ago they replaced engine and it is still going for my Nephew.
I had a ’92 SL1 5-spd as well (bought new), only I kept it for 7 years and 250k kms. Overall it was a good car for the times. Yes it rattled but it was relatively trouble free for all those years. One rocker arm was defective and was replaced under warranty within the first couple years. I wore the clutch out too, but that was after 200k.
I loved the plastic panels, though. I was rear ended twice, side-swiped by a F-150, and hit an icy snowbank over the course of owning it. The only damage was a groove cut into the unpainted rear bumper from the license plate frame of the truck that rear ended me at a stop light.
It was also good in the snow. With good snow tires, it went through snow like no other car I have ever had (my trucks, SUV are better).
Because of my good luck with it, my mother bought ’98 SL2 (new), which I inherited years later, and a ’07 Vue with the Honda 3.5. I inherited that one too, and used to own a ’07 Ion 2.4. That one was not as nice, but the engine made it fun.
Overall I was sad to see Saturn go, but GM just let it rot on the vine after the mid-90s.
I thought I was going to be stuck again as the only one to say something good about a car that has become a popular target. I am happy to see that others have tried it and found it to be what it was intended for. A reliable, tough, and economical little car. I had two of them and was pleased with both. Can only echo some of what I read above. Then GM s**t the bed and turned Saturn into the stateside arm of Opel. Our 97 had 200k miles when our daughter totalled it with her two daughters as passengers. Nobody was hurt. Another daughter had one and tangled with a truck. She drove away and the truck could not till he completely removed his bumper.
I notice the ones that like this car actually owned one before it had the snot driven out of it. Going back as far as Pauls 2009 review of the Nissan Cube for TTAC, I notice the same thing.I also really like my cube. I have come to the conclusion that some folks just like to badmouth something apparently just to join in or just based on looks.
I am not a GM fan but I do like some of their products. The S series is one of them but I actually drove even cheaper with the base SL in both cases.
Who is next for the soap box.
I’m with you wstarvingteacher. I don’t think there was anything inherently wrong with the Saturns for their intended mission and price point. To use food analogies again, as long as I know I’m going to a McDonalds and paying McDonalds prices, I don’t feel ripped off when I get McDonald’s food. You get what you pay for.
First generation Saturns in fact sold at higher prices than their competition. It was marketing that sold the cars, not engineering and design.
Then their loyal customers died. Demographics are a real downer and a real player in our society. Good thing we can ignore them!
Hmm
93 Saturn SL2 $11595.00
93 Civic LX $12110.00
93 Corolla DX $12298.00
So, care to reword that?
Did they even sell these where you are or are you just trying to get people fired up?
I love coming here because I truely enjoy all the comments, even yours, but in most places I believe you would have been labeled a troll at this point 🙂
The price was higher in Canada due to the weakness of the Canadian Peso at the time. The Corolla was built in Canada, so it had a price advantage.
With options, the Saturn got expensive quickly.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved those cars. We made a fortune off them just as their warranties expired. Mostly electrical but also major engine issues.
“No haggle” kept Saturn’s actual transaction prices high, too. The sticker on my Homecoming car was close to $16,500 with a 5-speed and no sunroof – pretty damn ridiculous for 1994. I paid $9,000 for it three years later.
It wasn’t that these were ever bad cars and actually compared quite favorable to the competition when they came out. Their demise came as a result of GM putting the entire division on the back-burner for nearly 10 years before it replaced the original SL. By then it was too little too late. Had Saturn been able to develop new products for customers trading in their old SLs and wanting to move up into something bigger or more luxurious, they might still be around. Instead, the SLs grew waaayyy too long in the tooth and became America’s VW Beetle at a time when Americans wanted SUVs. Poor planning, not poor cars.
I don’t think it was ever really possible to save GM. They simply had too many brands for the number of units they sold. GM’s real downfall was demographics: these cars sold well among the WWII generation, at least in Victoria where I was. When this hard-smokin’-and-drinkin’ group moved on, there were no customers to replace them. Speaking from experience, I would doubt that few Saturn buyers ever cross-shopped anything other than a GM product.
The Escalades, Tahoes, and Silverados became GMs bread and butter cash cows during the 90’s-2000s. Heck, Cadillac even beat Lincoln at their own game with the Escalade. I think people forgot about their cars at the time. Interesting that Pontiac, Saturn, and Oldsmobile–the divisions with no real truck-based SUVs (save the Bravada) all left the party. Probably not a coincidence. Also speaking from experience, we traded our old ’99 Saturn in for an ’04 Civic and hated it (it felt like tinfoil and accelerating onto the interstate meant putting your faith in god’s will) so we got rid of that too. Shopped around a lot. Liked the Camrys but waayy overpriced, so it was either a Sonata or a Saturn Aura with the Ecotec 4. The Aura, even though it was really an Opel, felt (and still feels) much better screwed together than the Hyundai or even the Fusion we looked at. Time will tell, but so far I’ve had better luck with GM products than other stuff.
Maybe in Canda, because here in the US about 60-70% of Saturn customers were new to GM.
And where did they go? GM hasn’t exactly gained market share since Saturn went bust. What are they in in the USA? A whopping 17.9%, an 88 year low. No amount of spin can make this look good. GM stock immediately dropped 10% on the announcement. This is not good for GM or the taxpayers. Really, people should be demanding answers; when Ford and even Fiatsler can do well, why can’t Government Motors? Which conspiracy to keep GM down is it this time?
Well, I’ll get up on the soapbox and cheerfully admit that I don’t care for the looks of the Cube, which I classify with Juke and Soul as hamster cars. They may all be decent vehicles for all I know – my view is totally based on their looks.
A friend had a Saturn SL1 wagon, a beautiful-looking car, metallic burgundy with camel leather seats. He had to replace the battery, alternator and complete charging system at 36,000 miles. But I also knew several people who had them and loved them, although I was never sure whether it was the dealer experience they loved or the car itself as they raved equally about both.
I bought a brand new 1991 SL2 and loved most everything you cite above about it until the warranty ran out. About 6 mos. after the warranty ran out everything started to go wrong.
Cracked trans seal, broken power window motors, then once fixed, very slow windows, squeaks and rattles galore and a surgy feeling trans that the dealer couldnt replicate, then a general feeling of an impending catastrophe.
Finally dumped it in 1995 with 61K for a new 1995 Pontiac Grand Prix SE coupe! That was a great car! The Pontiac dealer [Buddy Hutchinson Pontiac/Route 1 Jacksonville FL] who took the Saturn in on trade seemed entusiastic about getting it though and gave me 6500.00 for the Saturn!
First-generation Saturns seem to be really hit-or-miss cars, even by domestic standards. My aunt’s brand new ’92 SC had all the problems you describe and more, even during the warranty period, and died completely on her at 85,000 miles; my ’94 Homecoming SL2, bought used with 36,500 on the clock, was relatively trouble-free with only an intermittent stalling problem near the end of its 55,000 miles in my care.
Truly the Rodney Dangerfield of cars…..they don’t get no respect.
I had a ’99 SL2 with a 5-speed in college with only 21K on the odo. It was a great car: quick, nimble, easy to drive/park, amazing fuel economy, and I could fix it with a $14 set of tools from Wal-Mart. I’ve since owned two Hondas, and the Saturn had fewer problems (and much better driving dynamics) than either one of them during the 9 years and almost 200K miles I put on it. True, gravity won its battle with the headliner early on and the constant buzzing of the interior plastics could only be drowned out by the aftermarket Sony I had installed, but it confirmed my suspicion that it’s usually the emblem on the hood that determines the value and perception of a car more than anything else.
They got better, I still drive a 97 SL2 that was a hand me down from Grandma. While the ergonomics piss me off and it is a bit a bland mobile, it has been reliable and comfortable for over 100,000 miles now. I’ve replaced the battery in a parking lot and done discs and pads in my driveway plus buying a headliner in 2002 when we got it but I have no complaints about function. On the other hand, the Ion was an unmitigated POS that made the S series look like a Camry.
Cant say Ive ever seen one of those there is the odd Saturn here and they sell cheap like noone wants one,
I find Saturns to be something of an anomaly. People either loved these cars or hated them. We have friends that had a silver wagon, I think it was a 1998. They kept it for a couple of years and sold it because it was literally falling apart. They drove me and my wife home in it on our wedding day. I remember thinking what a piece of crap it was. I felt like I was riding on the ground and man was it LOUD! I know they couldn’t wait to get rid of that car,
On the other side of the coin, I have met several people with well over 200k miles on their Saturns that swore they were the best cars ever made, and that GM should never have stopped making them. Go figure!
A poor ride beats a proud walk everyday
I had a ’94 SW1, bought new. It got totaled when a deer jumped in front of it in 2000, with just about exactly 200,000 miles on it. Still on the original clutch, but maybe the third alternator. Everything else was working just fine. If it hadn’t gotten totaled I would have been happy to keep driving it, since it still worked pretty much like new. I checked out a 2000 Saturn wagon, and it was awful, so I dropped Saturn and ended up buying a Honda CR-V.
I thought the idea was to build a car with Japanese quality? America can never build a car like Germany or japan because they are looked at just another form of “white goods”to can after 4 years.