Faults:

Windshield was ill fitted Chinese knock off that started to actually come out on a road trip.

Interior fit and finish very poor with numerous squeaks.

Remote trunk release failed after 2 weeks. Cannot be fixed apparently.

Engine shudders in drive at low speeds and idle.

Transmission clunks in and out of gear.

Car prone to gas line freeze up even with antifreeze added to fuel.

Saturn service? Deny, deny deny everything. Useless.

General Comments:

This car is a total and unmitigated disaster. I will not take it out of the city. This is my second Saturn and it will absolutely be my last. As soon as I can get the engine shudder fixed, it's hitting the auctions.

Faults:

Luckily, nothing major so far.

A couple of really annoying squeaks have developed. One from inside the dashboard and the other seems to be coming from the right-rear passenger area, where the door would be if this was a 4-door car. They are both a chirping type of noise and very annoying!

I find that the transmission is difficult to shift into first and reverse gears at times.

The ignition gets stuck sometimes. This is a very common problem with these Saturns.

General Comments:

Overall, I really like my Saturn. I think it's a very stylish and distinctive little economy car.

The interior is by no means plush, but it is reasonably comfortable and roomy for a small car. The interior is nicely styled for an inexpensive car, but the plastics are just too cheap looking for my taste.

The overall performance of the car is pleasing. The steering is tight, firm, and responsive. The suspension gives a comfortable and controlled ride, but there is too much wobble during quick manuevers. The brakes work very well on this car and the brake pedal is firm without being spongy like so many GM cars. Overall acceleration with the standard engine in my Saturn is adequate. It feels quite zippy driving around town, but feels weak when trying to accelerate onto the highway quickly. Once you're up to speed, the car has no problem maintaining speed and passing.

There have been a lot of complaints about Saturns having too much interior noise. Accelerating and cruising doesn't seem to produce any louder than normal noises in the cabin for a small car like this. I find the Escorts I've driven to be a lot noisier inside than my Saturn. It's not too noisy for everyday driving.

My only concern with this Saturn is reliability. From all that I've read up on, the SL and SC Saturns have all kinds of reliability issues. Both manual and automatic transmissions are failure prone. The standard 100hp engine has head gasket problems and the 124hp engine has oil burning problems. Saturn quality seems poor, but what attracted me to my SC1 was the good looks, decent performance, great fuel economy, and low price. Whether it'll last or not is hard to tell at this point. I don't know if I'll buy another Saturn in the future or not.

Faults:

I bought the car pre-owned from a Saturn dealership so they had fixed whatever bugs it may have had in the first 50,000 of my Saturn's life.

The only problem I've encountered so far is that my car is eating oil like nobody's business! However I went to the dealership as soon as I noticed it, they diagnosed the car, gave me options and told me there was no charge for the work or parts it took. They even threw in a loaner car while mine was in the shop. Now, it still takes more oil than any other car I've owned, but the pros by far outweigh the cons in this Saturn.

There is a strange little rattle in the steering column as well, but only when I'm turning at less than 5 miles per hour. It's been harmless so far.

General Comments:

This is a great car for the money! I have leather interior, power windows and locks, spoiler, great sound system and more -- all the bells and whistles that I could not afford in any other car are piled into this one.

Beyond that, it looks and runs great even though I drive about 2000 miles per week (my commute is about 50 miles each way), and a good part of it is over winding mountain roads.

Since gas prices are a growing concern (and I do mean growing!), the 1999 Saturn SC2 is an asset to me as it gets about 300 miles per fill-up.

Bottom line: I love this car -- and so does my husband who insists we take my car on any long trip.