UDel

When I worked at a GM plant over the summer we were building the Saturn L series sedan, I was never a big fan of that car, it was okay but Accords, Camry's, Maxima's were much nicer.

I made a ton of money that summer, I basically lived at the GM plant working 7-12's getting as much overtime I possibly could, it wasn't bad because I was on final line when I got the over time shift which was mainly parking them, driving them to repair areas, doing final inspections/some fixes.

I liked the Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky, made at the same plant, one of the nicer looking 2 doors. I remember getting a ride in a lowered tuned black S coupe with the fold up lights, it wasn't bad looking and pretty quick, not sure what he did to it other then intake/exhaust. A lot of people say the best thing about Saturn was them getting a Honda V6 in the Redline.

Overall the brand nor models never impressed me, I remember the commercials for it in the late 80's and the way they were hyping them up I expected a very groundbreaking car but instead I found it very plain when I read about them, saw pictures, saw them.

mmarshall

Yes, the L-series never had the quality of the S-series. It was basically the same platform that went into the Cadillac Catera and Saab 9-5....which also did not have a good reliability reputation. The first L-series I sampled was rather poorly-built; it has squeaks, suspension-noise over bumps, and what seemed to be a off-center steering wheel. It kept the plastic body panels on the doors and front fenders, but eliminated them on the rear fenders.

Thank you for your service to the company. I'm sure you well-earned each paycheck you got.....although working conditions at that Wilmington, DE plant for the L-series were probably not as good as at the Spring Hill plant for the S-series.

(I take it that, since you went to the nearby University of Delaware at Newark, you were indeed working at the nearly Wilmington plant.....I know that is at least one of the places where the L-series was built)


I agree the S-series more or less drove like most economy cars, except for maybe a little more engine noise o the early ones, which was filtered out in later production. But they were, indeed, groundbreaking cars in several ways. The space-frame and plastic side-panels made accident repair very simple, and resisted dents/dings/corrosion. And the innovative spin-off transmission filter (which was not carried forward to any other later Saturn product) made transmission service a breeze for the technician....as simple as changing engine-oil.

sm1ke

iTrader: (5)

Me neither, but opinions hurt feelings too

They had some interesting ideas, but I'm sure there are reasons their "innovations" aren't seen in today's current vehicles. New and interesting at the time, sure. Groundbreaking? Hardly.

mmarshall

There are probably three reasons you don't see the Saturn plastic panels today. One, of course, is cost. Two, the panels don't block out noise as well as metal panels. Three, the fact that plastic panels expand and contract significantly with heat and cold.....which means that relatively wide gaps are needed between them, so doors and fenders don't bind when opening and closing. The average car-buyer probably doesn't care, but auto-journalists tend to pan wide gaps as a sign of sloppy workmanship and poor production-tolerances, even if that is, in fact, not the case.

As for the innovative spin-off transmission filters, I think one or two other non-Saturn vehicles have used them, but, in general, I don't know why we don't see more of them...I don't have an answer for you on that one. They were a superb idea, especially for easy service in the bays, and they couldn't have cost that much more than conventional transmission filters, or else the Spring Hill plant couldn't have used them on the large number of low-priced S-series vehicles that were produced there.

Stroock639

yea but making a post about saturn on a lexus forum... that's like... making a post about saturn on a lexus forum!

sm1ke

iTrader: (5)

For those reasons, it's easy to see why the plastic panels never caught on. I know this has been beaten to death before so I'll leave it at that.

The transmission filters were probably good for the service techs, but I could see the do-it-yourselfers being a liability for Saturn or any brand that used this style on their cars. It wouldn't take much to contaminate transmission fluid enough to cause a serious problem. My thinking is that making it easy enough for a casual DIYer to perform introduces a potentially higher risk of damage due to the casual DIYer being a lot less careful than a certified mechanic. I would guess that the risk outweighed the benefit, and that's why we don't see them anymore. This also kind of explains why more and more manufacturers seem to go the way of "sealed transmissions" and no longer identify fluid change intervals for transmission fluid. That's my guess, at least.

JDR76

As I have mentioned before, I owned a 2001 SL2. It was the first car I ever bought brand new. I liked the styling and the available options, such as traction control which, at that time, was quite rare in that class of vehicle. I remember looking at Civics and Corollas at that time and they were considerably more money, so I couldn't afford one of those unless it was a stripper model. I had it for just over 4 years and put over 100k miles on it. Wasn't a bad car by any means, but certainly not flawless either. No real complaints about the power or the way it drove. It was reasonably comfortable and roomy. Lots of cheap interior plastics, though. My head gasket started leaking at 37k miles (1k out of warranty), fuel pump went out at about 85k, and sunroof motor died at 100k miles. I truly enjoyed the car, though some of my nostalgia for it is simply that it was the first car I ever got to buy brand new. I traded in a 1988 CR-X for it, so it definitely felt "new".

My in-laws bought (and still have) an L300, purchased in 2000. The leather seats have not held up well but otherwise the interior is basically okay. Again, lots of hard plastics. Has about 150k on the odo, so it needs some occasional repairs and maintenance, but my mother-in-law refuses to give it up as she's uncomfortable driving their Durango.

I remember when the Ion came out and I went to the dealership to test drive one but remember thinking "what is this thing?" Man, it was just awful.

mmarshall

It's hard to beat those panels to death LOL. Those panels can take a lot of punishment...that's why the reps used to beat them with baseball bats at th auto shows...to show how impressive they were.

.....and look at all the problems those sealed transmissions are having. Many of them don't last anywhere near the life of the vehicle.

mmarshall

Except for the nice plastic body panels, the Ion was a joke from Day One. Car and Driver, when it first debuted, called it the "Worst new American car in a decade". When I test-drove one, I concurred.

Byprodrive

iTrader: (1)

I drove a new 1st gen Vue, definitly in my top 5 worst vehicles I have ever driven. Amazingly SLOW ! for CA freeways. They should have named it the "Yield"

sm1ke

iTrader: (5)

Fast forward 10 years, in the dead of winter, and see how that door panel handles those baseball bats. Bet it doesn't end well lol. Doesn't really matter though, the idea was never revisited in modern cars, and didn't lead to anything. It belongs in the past IMO.


That's fair, but do you agree that spin-on filters could introduce a higher risk of damage due to the casual DIYer being a lot less careful than a certified mechanic (or a "Quick Lube" attendant)? Spin-on filters never lasted long, so I suppose it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. File the idea up on the shelf, right beside the plastic door panel idea.

mmarshall

Yep.....it's sure an old-fashioned idea to keep your local body shop from becoming rich.


The spin-off filters were essentially the same as a spin-off oil filter. The only difference is that there are magnets inside of the filters that attract and hold any iron/steel shavings that wear off the inside of the transmission and get in the fluid. Those magnets have to be taken out and cleaned when the filter is replaced....then they are re-usable inside the next filter.

SW17LS

At the end of the day, door dings are $100 to have removed with PDR, and are largely mitigated by parking carefully.

sdls

The first gen Vue had a Honda J35 V6 option that made it faster than a Top Fuel dragster.

mmarshall

Oh, I agree that careful parking is essential....but that doesn't necessarily prevent other careless people (and kids) from dinging things up with their bikes, scooters, door-openings, trees/nuts, etc... Companies like Dent-Wizard and Dent-Works will also, in some cases, come out to your place and repair your car (if possible), right on the spot....you don't necessarily have to go to a body shop (I was being facetious when I said that).

A complicating factor with plastic-body Saturns is that the paint on the plastic panels has to be done by a special process that allows the paint to flex in/out and expand/contract with the panels themselves, as plastic is affected by heat and cold more than steel or aluminum. That is why you have those large panel-gaps that some people (who, in fact, did not know what they were talking about, and were just spouting off) falsely-attributed to poor workmanship and assembly processes. Those gaps allow for expansion/contraction in extreme temperatures without the doors and fenders binding up. That special paint itself is what Saturn called "Waterborne" paint....I'm not an expert on the exact formula or make-up that type of paint, and don't know all of its details, but it results in a mirror-like shine, without orange-peel. Not all body-shops were capable of doing that type of paint-work, and some of them had to be Certified to work on plastic-body Saturns. The good thing, though, was, like I mentioned earlier, sometimes the panels could be ordered from the factory already pre-painted if the color in question was still available at the factory.