Saturn: A cornerstone of my childhood that will never return

In reply to Steve_Jones :

If I would have walked in to the Subaru dealership and the price they they eventually agreed to was just the price on the car, then, yeah, I would have bought it.  But that's the point:  We eventually get to a price that I'm willing to pay and they're willing to sell the car at.  I don't know that the fixed-price nature of Saturn is what caused this, but the shopping experience was different for me, as well.  It was literally an introduction, a handing of a business card, and I was left to shop the cars.  I got zero phone calls from the salesman except when I asked for a call back.  I've not had that experience at any other dealer before or since - it's always a lot more pressure.

Let me frame it another way: There's a grocery store that is really close to my house and they often have really good prices on things.  I could save a lot of time, some fuel, and a little money if I shopped there instead of going about 3x the distance to Kroger.  I find that store to be a little grungy, the employees to be a little more disagreeable, and every single time I'm there to get fresh fried chicken they're out of it.  So I don't shop there.  It's worth the extra time and money to go somewhere that is cleaner and has friendly staff.  Saturn was kind of the same thing in my experience. 

Steve Jones just doesn't get it. And we'll never be able to convince him.

So OMG we're paying sticker for a Saturn. Might it be that the 'full retail' price on the Saturn was actually a reasonable, competitive price to the crapbox Cavalier after all the negotiation games are over?  Let's just cut out all the drama and pay essentially the same 'fair' price for a car. 

I wonder if Steve has ever purchased a car from a dealership? Because I have, and that description of "needing a shower afterward" is painfully true. Even when I finally get to pay a reasonable price for a car I STILL feel like I've been rammed repeatedly in my anal orifice. Which is why I try to buy privately at every opportunity. Why subject myself to such unnecessary agony to purchase a product? 

There are those who relish the back-an-forth nonsense so they can feel like they've "made a great deal" or pulled one over on the dealer (Uh, you never do). Me? I don't have the time or patience for that BS.  About 250,000 buyers a year agreed with me, and bought Saturns. 

When asked what car she wanted for graduation my wife told her parents and grandparents, "I don't know. Saturn?" She really had no clue. But it was the mid-90s and she lived in Detroit so it had to be an American car. She knew it wasn't going to be a Pontiac if her experiences with her dad's 6000 were to be believed. Anyway she is still traumatized by the song. Seriously. I told her about this thread and it's the first thing she said. She was terrified to drive out the dealership showroom with everyone watching after having just been sung to. I might add, she's quite the introvert.

This is way longer than intended, but couldn't help sharing this story:

In late 1991, my mother went car shopping, looking to buy a reasonably priced compact sedan my father could drive when he got back from Kuwait (Desert Storm). She shopped all the usual suspects, but based on price and specs, it came down to two choices: Isuzu Stylus or Saturn SL. The friendly, no haggle model definitely helped sell the Saturn because despite Isuzu struggling to sell their cars, the dealer was a bunch of schmoes. It also helped that she could order it EXACTLY the way she wanted it, option-by-option, again, with no hassle, no haggle. Just pick the option, add option price to base price, get the final price. That simple. So simple as to appear genius in fact compared to trying to negotiate with a Ford or Toyota or Dodge dealer.

So she ordered a base base BASE SL (not even an SL1 mind you) 5-speed in that beigey-gold, with a tan/beige cloth interior, and exactly two options: a/c and anti-lock brakes. That's it. SOHC. Crank windows. Manual EVERYTHING. It was buzzy, but fun. In 1993, my parents accept the invitation and drove from Florida to the Saturn Homecoming event in Spring Hill, TN. Despite it pouring all weekend, they had a good time and still tell that story fondly.

It never really suffered any reliability issues except for the constant failure of the a/c compressor. I inherited it as a hand-me-down for a few years in the late 90s and it survived many many many unspeakable abuses. When I gave it back to my parents (I moved away for grad school), my father proceeded to drive it for another 12+ years. The original clutch lasted to 145k miles. The odometer broke at 160k-ish. In the end, it smoked like a cropduster and used a couple quarts of oil every fill up. Still pulled nearly 30mpg while doing it though. Mileage was probably well north of 250k by then. Somewhere around 2013 or 2014, my father sent it to the junkyard, but he was a Saturn-for-life convert by then. He's had a bunch of second gen SLs since, every one under $500. In fact, I think he currently has 4 or 5 in various states of disrepair as he's just not able to wrench like he used to (between over-commitment to numerous veteran's organizations and just aging out). Still, despite being able to afford better, more interesting, more exotic cars, his interests are really just his old Fiats and his old Saturns. In fact, he still looking for another first gen SL since he laments letting our original car go. My goal over the next several months is to systematically get all of the Saturns either back on the road or salvaged before they start sinking into the Florida sand. Who knows, maybe we'll even find an early SL to restore. I'll try to share that if/when it happens.

In reply to darkbuddha :

I swear Saturns are the brand where they work real well, but there's one part that a specific car will just CONSUME. I know my knowledge is tainted by nostalgia, but one friend's family's saturn just consumed ball joins despite being in alignment and another's window motors always went out despite a set of junkyard doors. It was like the cars demanded a sacrifice 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to AClockworkGarage :

Saturns very much had a steel body, and they loved to rust out the rocker box area between the B and C pillars.  You couldn't tell there was a problem until the back doors stopped closing properly.

The front subframes were also quite fragile, at least before they added a reinforcement between the top of the TCA mount and the front subframe.  Bumping a curb would bend the subframe before it would damage a wheel or the TCA.  I replaced quite a few of them in the years 1996-2001 when those cars were common and I worked in a certain repair chain.  Given the timeframe they must have all been the early cars.  Oddly enough, when I jumped ship from there and started working at a Saturn dealership, I never saw a bent subframe   This was also in Columbus, where cars rust an order of magnitude or two less than in Cleveland.

That is the other kind of weird thing, the front subframes were these remarkably heavy perimeter monstrosities because for whatever reason they used a Ford style suspension where the front stabilizer bar doubled as a tension rod.  If they didn't do that, they could have shaved an amazing amount of weight from an already light car.

Yep to all of this.  

The chassis rust between the B and C pillars is the first thing I used to check on a used one.  Thats what would scrap a car.  It was common enough that I saw it from time to time in non-salt states.

The tension rod/swaybar front suspension was the worst part about those cars in my experience.

Maroon SL1 REPRESENT! 
 

Was the first car that was mine, handed down from my grandfather when he got into the latest Oldsmobuick.  First car that I modded, wrenched on, and loved as a teenager.

Fun fact: the speakers were all held in with plastic fasteners! And hit one hell of a speed fuel cut at 104.

I suspect that Saturn misplaced their crystal ball when they decided to get into the sports car market. They probably thought that there was a mass of Saturn aficionados just waiting for a sports car under the Saturn name. Turned out to be not so many.

They stuck some fake chrome on the car - vents that went nowhere and such and eventually sold around 1/2 as many as Pontiac sold Solstices, which were the same car without the fakery.

In reply to wspohn :

It didn't help that they were cramped inside, large outside, and had truck engines with unsporting gearboxes.

Sounds like a C4 on paper, now that I think about it.

In reply to wspohn :

I think the SKY failed because it wasn't really a Saturn sports car.  They should've built a lighter Fiero using the SC2 powertrain and cradle, or even the ION powertrain and cradle, with plastic body panels.  Instead, they built a wider, heavier Miata with a difficult-to-use top and a useless Prowler-style trunk.  As much as I loved our Saturns, when my kid was out of a car seat, I didn't buy a Solstice or SKY.  I bought another Miata.

My experience with Saturn is limited, but I get the sentiment (I'll get to that in a few). 

Back around 1998, my mom wanted to replace her aging 1986 Olds 98 Regency Brougham, and she wanted something "sporty" this time around. For my mom, that means she looked around the parking lot at work, found something that looked cool to her and had less than four doors, and asked the owner what they thought of the car. She found someone who had a red SC2 and they liked it a lot. So, she sent my dad and I off to the local Saturn of Hanover dealer to take a look. Within a few minutes, a very nice lady took my dad out to the lot after explaining the whole fixed price model. We were checking out a red SC2 and something happened that derailed the whole deal: my dad leaned on the quarter panel and it popped in. As much as the very nice sales lady told my dad that the cars were meant to do that, he was done looking at that point. NO STEEL BODY PANELS?!?! NO CAR!!!! No matter how the nice lady (or myself) explained that these had a rigid steel frame underneath all of that, he was clearly not the intended audience of these cars and we left very quickly.

They bought a lightly used 1996 Nissan Maxima GLE instead. Ended up being a great car in its own right, but I digress....

I think Saturns are cool, especially the 1st and 2nd gen cars before they became badge engineered Euro GM stuff. I appreciate that they were different from all the other GM divisions, and the twin cams can move pretty well, especially with mods. A kid on a car club cruise in NH years ago was blowing people's doors off with a turbocharged SW2 loaded up with all his buddies, and I thought that was the coolest. And I 100% understand GM pulling the rug out from Saturn owners, because I was (and still kinda am) a diehard Pontiac guy. That was MY brand, and GM killed it when it was just starting to get good again. 

I was bummed when they started putting a badge on Opels or whatever it was.  

That was when I finally became interested in them. Wanted to see if they would bring the Astra OPC but they died soon after. 

You could have paid sticker at Subaru and avoided all of the "games". That is my point. 

When I bought a WRX I walked in, paid slightly less than "sticker" and walked out un like an hour. I agree this dealer thing with Saturn is a silly thing to die on a hill on. The only dealership I ever had to argue with the people was Ford. 

One other thing I recall from being at Saturn is that they would sell right hand drive cars to anybody who wanted one.  Some rural mail carriers, some people who exercised dogs, some people who merely were eccentric enough to go all-in on buying a "different kind of car".

I serviced quite a few of them, and it was always amusing to signal for a porter to take one for cleaning/detailing and watch their reaction when they got in the wrong side of the car 

When did Saturn Waving stop? The Saturn Wave was like the Jeep Wave but it was pushed by Saturn itself. People did it for a while. I remember an early Saturn commercial where Jack Hanna reminded people to wave.

bluebarchetta said:

In reply to wspohn :

I think the SKY failed because it wasn't really a Saturn sports car.  They should've built a lighter Fiero using the SC2 powertrain and cradle, or even the ION powertrain and cradle, with plastic body panels.  Instead, they built a wider, heavier Miata with a difficult-to-use top and a useless Prowler-style trunk.  As much as I loved our Saturns, when my kid was out of a car seat, I didn't buy a Solstice or SKY.  I bought another Miata.

I don't think that the typical Saturn customer was into sports cars - family cars, commuter cars yes, but Saturn really didn't have much sporting aura.

As for the Fiero, I drove one for 19 years as my primary car - a 1988 GT, the year they finally got the suspension right by throwing away the Citation crap (rear) and Chevette (front) and replacing it with properly designed stuff and (finally) ventilated discs (I owned an 87 that overlapped the 88 so was able to compare the two first hand).  I'd 'laid hands' on my 88 and a turbo 300 bhp instead of a 140 bhp made it very satisfying,

The Saturn Sky was a bit of a joke in terms of luggage area. Put the top down and there goes the trunk space and there is no storage space up front (unlike the Fiero which had both a capacious rear trunk and a smaller compartment in the front where the spare tire lived.  The Kappas (Sky+ Solstice plus the Korean and European versions, the Daewoo and Opel) had no spare tire taking up space but also had no cargo space except for the Solstice coupe (which I own, replacement for the Fiero) which has a pretty good area behind the seats (my record is 5 cases of wine back there)

In reply to wspohn :

300 bhp in an '88 Fiero must have been a whole lot of fun!  From Apr 1992 through Dec 2014, my DD was either a Fiero, a Miata, or an S-series.  Never had an '88 GT but I did have an '88 Coupe.  My wife and I did a 2000-mi road trip in an '86 SE.  You're right - Fieros have a surprising amount of room for luggage if you use soft-sided bags:  rear trunk, frunk, and behind the seats if you're short, which we are.  Not as good a sports car as a Miata or MR2 but a better DD, especially if you live where they salt the roads.

Never driven a Solstice or Sky, but the last year I autocrossed regularly, a guy with an LS-swapped Sky would show up periodically.  It was fast and made great sounds, as you might imagine.

bluebarchetta said:

In reply to wspohn :

Never driven a Solstice or Sky, but the last year I autocrossed regularly, a guy with an LS-swapped Sky would show up periodically.  It was fast and made great sounds, as you might imagine.

I like my Solstice coupe because it looks dead stock but has a 375 bhp engine - even looking under the hood it is impossible to tell that the turbo has a larger impeller and intercooler.

Nice thing about turbo 4s is that when you keep your foot out of it you get 25- 30 mpg, much less thirsty than a V8.

My old turbo Fiero was fun - had a guy that lived somewhere out by me and drove an original generation Acura NSX. I used to see him on the way home (all highway) He gave up trying to pass what looked like a stock Fiero pretty quick    Nice thing about the Fiero was that unlike conventional front engined cars, it didn't lay rubber when you did a fast start (I had a bulletproof clutch and sticky rubber). It just went very quickly due to the weight bias being over the drive wheels - no squeeling tires, juts fast forward motion.

There was another guy that owned a turbo Supra (Mk 4 - the one that looked like a jelly bean with a handle on the back) - we were about equal in performance.

Steve_Jones said:

You don't get it either, and I'll never convince you. All of that "drama" you speak of can be avoided if you just walk in and pay sticker like you did with Saturn.

That's not entirely true.  Sure, you can avoid the haggling over price, but your average "low end" (*) car dealer isn't going to be "friendly".  No "have a test drive, here's my card, have a good day and call when you want to buy", you're going to get "what can I do to put you in this car today?".  You're also going to get aggressive attempts to drive even more profit on the back end through lousy loan deals, undercoating, useless extended warranties, and other BS like that.  Sure there are exceptions (this is much less common at high end dealers like Lexus/Audi/etc), but high pressure sales tactics are still pretty common.

That said, if you want the smooth, friendly, no haggle experience with a decent price these days, all it takes is a costco membership and a little bit of planning ahead instead of just randomly stopping by a dealership on a whim.

I  bought a 97 SC2 5 speed in 2009 with 95k on it. Racked up about 125k more on it the next 4 years. Ended up liking that car way more than I thought I would.

We have a Saturn 2009 Ruby Red Sky Redline.  Love it!  Only a few thousand were made that year.

Sadly, she is for sale because we bought a behemoth Corvette.  No garage room for both.  :-(

There was a dark blue Saturn wagon in our family for 200k+ miles.

I wish I could buy a sub-3000 lb., twin-cam, 5-speed station wagon today.  

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

 just randomly stopping by a dealership on a whim.

My dad did this I can't count how many times and bought a car probably a third of the time. I remember it being way more common.

My wife bought one of the Saturn two door SC coupes back in the early 90's.  She like the Saturn "no haggle" sales experience and she thought the car was "cute".

I never could warm  up to this car.   The engine got wheezy at higher RPM, it was very cramped  with low headroom/legroom compared to my CRX Si (and I am 5'8" and weighted about 140 at the time) plus the mirrors had an opening in the mount that  caused a whistle sound above 75 mph.   Very annoying.

She loved it so that is all that mattered.

Indy - Guy said:

wae said:

....

So, yeah, I knew I was paying sticker price, but it was worth it to avoid those kinds of games.  The Saturn dealership was really an experience of "these are our cars.  We think they're great and we'll tell you why.  If you want to ask questions or go for a test drive, here's my card.  Browse around and let me know if I can help".

That's pretty much the buy and sell model that CarMax is using some 20+ years later.  And by all accounts, it's still working.

It is. CarMax and Carvana both operate that way. I've bought one from each of them. It's as easy as Car-Price-Sold. In and out in less than an hour at CarMax and didn't even leave the house with Carvana. 

And no, you can't walk in and pay MSRP at a dealership and not put up with their crap. They are still going to try to stick you with nitrogen upcharges, multiple extended warranties, upholstery protection, financing BS, and on and on. Hard pass. I'm there to buy a car, not wade through their constant barrage of sales pitches. Rick Hendrick is at the top of the worst of them. I wouldn't darken their door for a cup of water. They would try to upsell it too.