My brother is looking for a beater-winter car as his new job is three times the distance of his old one; his DD is a 3/4 ton Chevy 4X4. He keeps talking about Saturns but his automotive experience and knowlege is about the same as mine of neurobiology.
What to look for, specific models or features to avoid?
This one is $700 in Hartford, CT.
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5071841533.html
Well, first of all.... they all burn oil. You have to religiously check the oil.
I think there are two camps... the SOHC and the DOHC. Folks from one camp will not agree with folks from the other.
I'm in the SOHC camp. The SOHC is slightly simpler and gets better gas mileage. The DOHC has more HP and gets slightly less gas mileage. I have seen a number of DOHC with burned exhaust valves on cylinder #3, I'm not sure what causes this.
I have never owned an automatic Saturn, but there is a thing called 'reverse slam'.. Its fixable but you have to pull the tranny. Also both manual and automatic have an issue with the differential pin falling out and destroying the transmission. The diff pin issue can be caused from wheel spin and driveline shock.
The good news is Saturns will last forever is you take care of them.
Parts are cheap. They are great on gas. They run forever if cared for. Yes, they use oil. Keep a case of cheap 5w30 in the trunk. That one looks good for $700. 1996-2002 is the sweet spot.
they'll also last almost forever if you only very marginally care for them.
Oh, I forgot the rust issue...
Typically the rust will start where the 'B' pillar meets the rocker panel and the rocker panel will rust along the rear door threshold.
Also the front subframe can rust and cause dangerous handling issues.
At $700, there is $400 in scrap value there so this becomes a $300 dollar risk. If you can negotiate the price down the risk is even less.
This is a SL2, the uplevel model with the DOHC engine. It is pretty well equipped. I can see the power window switches which are mounted in the center console ans well as the Cruise buttons which are on the wheel.
I'd look at it.
Plastic body panels hide the rust which is both good and bad. It could still be very rusty underneath.
bluej wrote: they'll also last almost forever if you only very marginally care for them.
Sorry for the post whoring, but bluej is correct... if all you ever do is add oil the car will last almost forever
2x on it will run forever if you keep oil in it. My '95 SC1 was a hoot to drive. Manual transmission, 32 mpg no matter how I beat it. My Mom drives a '96 SC1 automatic with almost 200k on it and it is finally showing signs of transmission problems.
They do fold like a cheap suit in side impact crashes though. I got T-boned by a 2000 Hyundai Sonata ( I was stopped, she was doing about 30 mph). The Hyundai sustained almost no damage except for the grill emblem popping off. My Saturn was totaled. Someone sitting in the passenger seat would have broken their right leg easily, and possibly more. The door panel moved a good 6" inward, the dashboard bent upward 4" (enough to break the radio bezel) and shatter the windshield. I was just rattled, but I was a unsettled by how much damaged was done to the passenger side.
Great cars, listen to what is said earlier. Check oil daily, till you figure how how much you have to add and when. You will have to add. I use 5w30 maxLife-seems to have slowed mine down a bit. Parts are cheap. They are true cockroaches. I gave $400 for mine, and have done nothing to it other than vac it out a few times and add oil. That one looks really good for the money. No aftermarket support to speak of, but there is some good tech out there and they are pretty straigforward to wrench on
In my experience, it will last WAAAAY longer than you want it to. Mine doesn't even burn much oil yet at almost 140K. So far: oil changes, tires and an accessory belt in the three years I've owned it. Just starting to have traces of rust on the door sills. I haven't yet decided if I care enough to do anything about it. It gets a solid high 20's on my daily trip to work (all city, short run, never really reaches operating temperature, i.e. - that's the worst possible mpg's you should see) and has touched 40 mpg on the few all highway trips I've taken.
Main Con: SL1 is bread truck slow. The only other unmentioned issue I know of is exhaust leaks at the flex pipe. Fixes there can be expensive compared to the price/value of the car.
I don't like them personally, it's basically a cheap Corolla knockoff with plastic skin. They rust like any other GM product of the era, they just look nice doing it.
Besides the oil burning, subframe/engine cradle rusting, general rust, and diff pin failure mentioned. The multilink rear end tends to snap trailing links, which are in increasingly short supply (at least they were last time I replaced one for somebody). They always break on the upright end, where it is attached with a stud (through a bushing) welded into the tube, the stud has a squared off end and they break right there. As I recall some also have a funny air dam for the radiator with moving parts, rip it off on ice and the car likes to overheat in warm weather.
I'd much rather have a Corolla unless regional market differences make this an unaffordable proposition.
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