Faults:

My car wouldn't start up one day, and it was a sensor, and it cost me like 200 bucks to get it fixed. 105,000 miles.

Brake pads replaced... 100,000 miles.

New exhaust put on, 176,000 miles.

New oil pan - 170,000 miles.

General Comments:

I bought this car at an auction, and it had almost 100,00 miles on it when I bought it.

It has been a very reliable car for the 7 years that I've owned it. A great starter car, but then you need an upgrade to power locks and windows.

It doesn't have any power anything on it. It's good on gas mileage. 30mpg.. My car has 199,000 miles now and it's still running good.

I'm eventually going to sell it and buy a car with power everything, and of course cruise control. Saturn doesn't have power locks or cruise control.

Faults:

It seems like the fuel filter is always clogging up!

Seats wear if you sit in them after awhile.

General Comments:

Great starter car.

Great gas mileage (35+mpg).

Comfy.

Perfect car for anything.

My car has 282592 miles and still runs strong.

Email me at friklife@gmail.com if you want more info on this car.

Faults:

I needed to put new rear brakes on.

New tires.

Bracket for my muffler.

Now it will not start; that will be taken care of Friday.

Spark plugs and wires changed.

Today I tried to start it and it stalled. Tried to start it again and it would not start, so I pressed the gas pedal to the floor and black smoke came out of the engine. Now it will not start at all.

General Comments:

I bought my Saturn SL2 at a Ford dealer where I live, after my Ford Escort quit on me for good.

The person who owned it was the owner's aunt, and she traded it in for a new Focus. The Saturn only had 59400 miles on it when I bought it.

A Saturn is very different to a Ford, and I had to get used to that. But all in all it has been a pretty good car. I drive it to work and back, which is a 114 mile round trip.

When I bought the car, the car had been sitting in the dealers lot for a month without being driven, so when I first started driving it, I had a hard time getting it started.

Faults:

The alternator diode went, which was caused by trying to constantly charge a bad battery. I tried to go the cheap route to fixing the battery indicator by cleaning the battery terminals and tightening them, when I should have had it checked out.

Check engine light comes on from time to time, it's the EGR valve code. I clean it out, clear the code, and everything works fine.

All other work I have had done was typical maintenance; rear brakes, radiator flush, new tires, regular oil changes.

My car does stereotypically burn oil, it's about a quart every 700 miles, so not too bad, yet.

General Comments:

With the manual, I can get 37 mpg on the highway. I think with Saturn, the simpler, the better; no sunroof to leak, no seat belts, window, or power lock circuits to short.

It's an economy car, and I have saved a lot with this car. Fixing these things on another car would be much more costly, Saturn parts are readily available and reasonably priced. If you keep up on preventative maintenance like I have, you will have no headaches with this car.

Faults:

The SL2 has many over heating issues, the heads crack easily, and oil leaks are frequent.

General Comments:

The good part is you don't really have to spend all kinds of money taking it to the dealer, if you know a little bit about cars and fixing them.

There is a reason these Saturn's start to overheat at about 80 to 100,000 miles, it is because like other cars, things start to go bad if the car is abused or not properly taken care of.

The overheating issue is mainly due to the fan not kicking in until the engine is almost in the red, this happens because the brains of the car don't do what they're suppose to do. This means basically that cars were better off from the start before they started putting all these high tech fancy gadgets into them. To fix the fan problem, all you simply have to do is get a replacement fan that is built to kick in at a lower temperature, and a good radiator. When you replace these items, you also replace the thermostat and get one also that is built to kick in at a lower temp. You do this early, you know "preventative maintenance", at about 80,000. You will save yourself the heartbreak of having to replace engines, gaskets, oil gaskets and pans, and heads that break due to the car excessively and constantly overheating.

Take my advice; my girlfriend has a Saturn that I completely fixed at 120,000 miles, no more overheating problems.