Faults:
A plastic bushing in the manual transmission shift linkage broke. Saturn does not sell just the bushing, only the whole shift assembly for several hundred dollars. I found out over the Internet that other Saturn owners have encountered the same broken shift bushing problem. There is even an individual selling a bushing replacement for just a few dollars. Given that Saturn tries to create such a positive owner image, I find it ridiculous that they don't sell just the part in question. Why not just sell you a whole new car when the tires wear out!
Additionally, I have had to alternator once and the battery several times. As this car is driven by son at school, it was serviced for this problem by a local Saturn dealership. I would normally think of this as simple maintenance, but my daughter drives a 1996 SL2 and has also replaced the alternator and battery several times before having 90,000 miles on her car.
My sons and daughters Saturn's together have gone through more batteries and alternators than my old 1977 Oldsmobile with 350,000 miles!
27th Apr 2009, 21:59
Cars are built to last only as long as the warranty. If the warranty is 100k, then it is only built to last 100k. Whatever you get beyond that is due to the care of your car. I've seen BMW's hit 100k, and 400k, both the same model and year, both cared for differently.