Now that GM has thrown us out with the bathwater, what brand will everyone go to next?

I had been a lifelong Mopar guy when I bought this car, and I would have stayed with Saturn forever.

And from what I read, Saturn had the highest customer loyalty of all GM brands.

Amazing.

It's all about profit -- customer loyalty and satisfaction clearly didn't mean jack.

I'll probably try ford -- they seem to have finally figured out how to paint a car without the paint flaking off in 7 years.

Or Nissan/Infiniti
Or Honda

Well Ford certainly did step up the pace in the last couple of years. I wouldn't mind owning a car or three that they're making now.

But i'm gonna miss the plastic body Saturns though.

Dunno, basically (sorry international groups) I am a buy american fan. Not that I have all the time, but given by druthers, I would rather have a Chrysler than a rebadged Mitsubishi, or when it comes to Saturns, a rebadged Opal. My 94 Saturn has been worth while to spend money to refurbish once, I probably would not do it a second time. My rebuilt AMC cars satisfy me. One more to go and I am done.
I want another coupe. The new Caddy makes a lot of sense to me. I may have to wait until it gets a couple of years old to afford one.
As for Fords, I just spent way too much time repairing a Focus that should not have quit working. It cut me everytime I touched it. Unlike the Saturn S cars, it was not made for service.
My last Ford I owned was a Lincoln that absolutly convinced me to never own another Ford car. The Focus, repaired for a friend did nothing to change my mind.
I have enough paid for cars to last a while, I'l wait and see what the Chrylser Fiat deal does.
If everything goes to heck then I guess I will look at a Mercedes or a Caddy (that is not a rebadged something else. )

I'm also a "buy american" guy.

My next vehicle would have been a Saturn Vue. I love those. They did however use an Acura V6 for a few years there, which I've gotta admit makes me think about Acuras, especially since they're making them here in the US now. I probably won't go there though.

Sadly, I probably won't go to Chrysler next. My last two new vehicles were Chrysler minivans, and there were too many things wrong with them, particularly the suspension. In fact, every Chrysler product i've owned since the 80's had a suspension that I can only describe as "clunky" in comparison to my Saturn.
In the case of the minivans, you could literally throw the suspension out by simply stomping on the gas hard at around 15 mph, and making it slam into 1st gear.
Do that no more than 2 or 3 times, and you needed a re-alignment. And yes, this was across both minivans I owned, both purchased new.

So I might wind up doing like you, uncljohn, and just rebuild my SL2 a couple of times.
Maybe find a seriously mint Vue with low miles, and run with that for a while. But then I don't know how reliable the parts availability is going to be.
I've no doubt that GM will only stock the bare minimum of parts for these.
I mean we're talking about a company that not only killed Saturn, but also Pontiac and Oldsmobile!

don't get me wrong I'm a buy american dude as well -- i have three saturns in the driveway. It's just so frustrating to see subpar after subpar effort offered for sale under the premise that the quality is better than it used to be.

There's a reason so many buyers flocked to the Japanese vehicles -- minus the first couple rust laden years -- the reason was decent quality,

Are all Hondas and Toyotas out there super duper reliable? I doubt it--- lemons just like any other mass produced car. But once you get the perception of quality out there it lingers like athelete's foot until something like the Toyota fiasco or the Acura tranny mess in the middle of last decade.

And then people forget

I hope the American car companies' products have improved -- no i have not done my research......but if perception of reliability and value is any indication the US automakers have a long way to come

SL2 Guy (http://www.saturnforum.com/forum/member.php?u=9667) http://www.saturnforum.com/forum/images/genesis/statusicon/user_offline.gif
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I'm also a "buy american" guy.

SNIP
Sadly, I probably won't go to Chrysler next. My last two new vehicles were Chrysler minivans, and there were too many things wrong with them, particularly the suspension. In fact, every Chrysler product i've owned since the 80's had a suspension that I can only describe as "clunky" in comparison to my Saturn.
In the case of the minivans, you could literally throw the suspension out by simply stomping on the gas hard at around 15 mph, and making it slam into 1st gear.
Do that no more than 2 or 3 times, and you needed a re-alignment. And yes, this was across both minivans I owned, both purchased new.
SNIP
Funny you would mention suspensions! I won't claim the Chrysler mini-vans were trouble free. The early ones had transmission problems up through early 2001 or so and the middle to late 90's were prone to spook electrical glitches. My 91 with 300,000 miles on it running purchased from a junk yard had it's share of problems and indications that it had not been trouble free. The transmision was definatly a replacement. Neglect and abuse factored highly but the suspension was not one of them.
By 96 purchased as a used car had spook electical problems and as it was 10 years old it turned out neglect had taken it's toal too and I could trace 5 transmission in it. Inexcusable in my book. I put 3 in myself in 30,000 miles before I gave up on it. But again suspensions were not a problem. I had overloads so I could carry a dead weight of one ton with it.
The transmission and electical problems were also inexcusable.
It is my understanding the transmission was re-designed for 2002, way too late in my opinion for something that never should have happened in the first place
but,
I needed stow and go interior and when I made my 96 go away I bought a 2007, transferred the overloads to it and at least once a month carry close to a ton of dead weight, but about 30,000 miles a year on it, partially on delivery routs and driven it accross country loaded at high rates of speed.
When brake wore out, changed to ceramics and other than replacing tires and filling the gas tank runs with out complaint.
And it has a push rod engine instead of the rubber drive belt cam so no problems with breaking belts, and the 4.0 has chain drive overhead cam so should run like early Saturns, almost forever with no cam drive problems.
Again, other than the overload which stiffens up the ride a bit empty, I don't see a suspenstion problem.
At least one that has plagued me about anything.
With the Vue and the automatic you are looking at the joint venture GM/Hungarian Fiat constant velocity transmission which has a reputation of not making it off the dealer lot.
Don't know about later ones though, parts availability would be my biggest concern and no dealer network to maintain it, or supply parts for it no matter what GM claims.
If you do most of your own maintainence, seeing a dealer is not a big thing. Except for dealer unique things and product related problems.
My car has seen the dealer twice for minor warrenty failures, no problem, once for schedualed 30,000 mile transmission service, getting ready for 60,000 for extended warrenty on transmission and the dealer body shop once when I tore the whole side off of it from turn signal to turn signal. They have the best body shop in town.

uncljohn, when I say I was a mopar guy, I mean I was a MOPAR guy.

In exactly 30 years of driving, I owned all but 2 mopars.
I owned:
57 dodge coronet
64 dart
65 dart
64 imperial
67 valiant
68 fury III
70 ply gtx
71 monaco
73 duster
73 satellite
74 fury
85 lancer
86 horizon
87 turismo
88 omni
another 88 omni
95 neon
98 dodge minivan
2001 chrysler minivan

So i'm a really big fan of all things mopar.
Except the suspension. I always knew they were crappy and noisy, I mean after all I'd drive other peoples cars once in a while and I could see the difference.
But I just never appreciated just how big of a difference it could be until I got my Saturn.

That is an impressive list, although I too have one.
60 Plymouth
60 Valiant
63 Valiant
66 300
68 Newport
78 Volary
79 Omni
80 Aries. (This was interesting, one of the first one on the road. Like driving a Ferrari as far as causing public interest)
92 Eagle Summit (drove 270,000 miles)
91 Dodge minivan (bought from junk yard with 300,000+ only one I needed to do front suspension work on, ball joints wore out.)
96 T&C - this was truely a bad car, Factory problems and neglect.
2007 T&C
Along with a bunch of other cars, some requiring high mileage suspension repairs others trouble free
and 1 Saturn, still have because it is enjoyable and a coupe. Never bought another.
When some one in accounting decided I wanted a coupe with more doors, I decided I didn't and it was ugly to boot so just kept the one I had.
Still don't see a suspension problem. Early ones torison bar, later ones struts, pretty much all different and pretty much contemporary for the time.
Once detroit decided that a Greasless suspension was the way to go, and it wasn't I installed grease fitting where ever I could and greased them. Still do.
Except the Saturn, no grease fittings, no problems and the Eagle Summit aka Mitsubishi. Saturn still running no problems. The Eagle summit drove 270,000 and sold it for a grand because I needed something bigger at the time. No spare money so Junk yard Dodge worked. It ran when I bought it and looked like white trash owned it last.
It took me a week to clean out the interior so I could sit in it with out my skin crawling. Except for worn out ball joints, the front end worked and did not cause me any more problems. The way the front end was built, did not bother to re-alighine it, although it probably could have used it. It quit runnig before I got to it. I guess I just don't see a running record of front end problems.
Transmissions yes, late 90's electrical spook problems yes, if I had not needed stow and go probably would have bought a Chevy Van in 2007, although GM had uglyed them up a bit at the time and the Saturn dealer wanted premium prices for an ugly Chevy with a Saturn badge on it.
A close friend, who worked at dealer parts assured me at the time that Chrysler (Mercedese) had gone through the transmission on them getting rid of problems. It drives like they did.
It acts like it was taken care of. It shifts like a 700r4 rather than the 2 older ones did.
I have some nice cars I liked, I've had some that met the requirement of getting me from A to B
This 2007 is one of my nice one. I'll keep it until it quits. My Saturn, well, that is another on. A car (S series) that took a lot of unjustified heat from the automotive niche publications when new, has been a more than satisfying ride. Kept it when I did not need it. Rebuilt it when I needed economy and paid for so on it's second life. Probably won't have a third one, but a pleasure to own and drive. And 5 other AMC cars either restored or in the process. (Now there is a car with a weak front end. I have gotten really good at rebuilding those and have a shelf of spare parts for them)

Well if we're all gonna show off,

80 Grenada
92 SL2
95 SC2
97 SC2
08 Vue XR

Grenada had like 90 HP from a straight 6 -- pathetic
Jumped time so I set the idle to 2200 and kept driving
vac was too low so I had to drive like 3 on the tree and couldn't get over 45 or it would slip into neutral

worked just fine around town

couldn't trade it in when I got the 92 cause it couldn't make it up the huge hill at the Satty dealership in Madison WI (RIP). In the early years they'd fix anything and everything -- even out of warranty -- for free. Just wanted you to be happy.

Oh my gosh -- a trip down memory lane. Lessee here ........

'49 Ford 2dr coupe
'56 Ford business coupe (no rear seat)
'63 Ford Galaxie 500 (city trash truck rolled over on it while parked)
'66 Ford Galaxie
'76 Honda Civic Hatchback
'82 Honda 4dr
'83 Ford Falcon Wagon (my daily beater - wife got the Honda)
'93 Saturn SW2 (still got this one -- my duty spare)
'94 Saturn SL2 (wife's car till some lout punted her through an intersection)
'02 Saturn L200 (wife's car for a time, but it's mine now)
'09 Saturn AuraXE (wife's car - of course)

Where do I do from here? Frankly, I dunno.

I drove another representative of a $25K new coupe yesterday. Twin cam V6, chain drive cam, 6 speed automatic with paddle shift if you want it, 4 wheel independant suspenstion. A nice car, lots of well thought out features, as a lot of them have. I get a kick out of the >new< concept of key usage. I could not help thinking of a MOPAR as it was advertisement back in the day
Suddenly it is 1960, when advertising the 1959 Plymouth.
Looking at how the key was dealt with I kept thinking;
Suddenly it is 1937
What is next? Late 40's GM where you could remove the key once the ignition was off lock and put it in your pocket? Sounds like a deal to me!
No, my 16 year old Saturn does not reflect the automotive technology that exists today, and rather than having an over 200 hp 3.5 L V6 it really could use another 15 hp but I don't really realise it until cruise control kicks out pulling 7% grades that I can see in this area.
Todays $25,000 coupes are certainly nice, no doubt about it. But going through my Saturn got the cosmetics up to snuff and it runs and drives happily and the new ones as nice as they are, are not $25,000 nicer. Don't know where I will go next. Probably wait awhile and see what my life is. When my Van gets tired and if I don't need another I like the new Caddy coupe a lot, but it is a deep pockets car.
I don't really need the Saturn right now, it is just nice to have a sharp paid for economical to drive alternative sitting in the drive way.
Oh Well, if Detroit keeps going the way they are, maybe I won't have to worry about it. I can just go down to the Generic Car group and purchase a new puce Forgetable and have it towed home.

OceanArcher, the SW2's were always a favorite wagon of mine.
And just the other day I wound up side by side to a Volkswagen Jetta wagon that had the same general theme to it. Very nice. I think if I ever go import, it will be German.

As far as Saturn goes, I think the writing was on the wall when they pulled the plastic body panels from production.
That led to them being able to rebadge anything they wanted, and call it a Saturn. :rolleyes:

But i've been checking out the Vue's more and more lately, and I really like the idea of finding a mint '06 with the Acura V6 in it.
I understand the manual is the way to go on those, right?

The question has been brought up, will a Saturn ever be a collector car? I dunno, I kinda doubt it my self. 1. They have not been around too long and 2. The original Saturn was pretty much a separate entity, built by and for Saturn to be sold hopefully to a market clientele that apparently did not materialize. The remaining years were part of the GM corporate generic car offering where a whole bunch of ill conceived sizes not only confused the buying public, but with nothing apparently to offer other than air bag locations and a badge with different spelling. If it sounds as if I have little use for GM's offering during those times, an interval that decided that what I was willing to plunk money down on was a 4 door, you are right. They were not the only manufacturer to do so, thus they were not alone but going out of business was not unique to GM.
It seemed that the market that GM and the rest of Detroit was shooting for shifted to off shore manufacturers but GM and others could not resist shooting themselves in the foot. As far as me and Saturn goes, when some one decided I wanted a coupe with more than 2 doors, I stopped buying Saturn’s and spent my car money on restoring some AMC cars to my satisfaction.
I can not help but to look back to the S cars though. Despite trade publications to the contrary that panned the early Saturn for excessive noise when driven hard and a number of other things of which I never really understood the reason for, but that one I remember. I looked at the Saturn early in the 1990's when needing a reliable car to drive on service work. The wagon or a coupe with the flip down rear seats made a lot of sense. People I talked to on the street at the time had mucho miles on them with complete satisfaction. Something hard to find from service people who beat the hell out thier cars.
I did not buy one at the time because I could buy and Eagle Summit Wagon new for 2/3 the price of a Saturn and it was a baby van that turned out to be a good buy. My Saturn, a 94 coupe came as a used car in 96. At that time Saturn’s were being campaigned heavily in scca small sedan races. I think they were a bit heavy in there class, but seemed to be doing well. The dealer bent over backwards to treat you as a customer instead of a conquest. And the car was friendly and fun to drive.
As time passed why did I not trade it? Good question. First of all I wanted another coupe, one that did not have more than 2 doors. As that was not an option, and I liked the car it was kept. When it got tired, needed some work and was not worth much, why did I not get rid of it. I liked it, it was paid for and fixed it was a nice car and I had room to park it in the driveway. Besides it was not worth much. I could not see getting chump change for a non-chump car.
3 years later when I spent about $1500.00 and more than a few hours going through what needed to be gone through, why? Good gas mileage, when fixed it wasn't broken, I liked it, I wanted a coupe, I had one, the problematic sun roof that I enjoyed, was fixed again, and despite all the early press that indicated that it wasn't a fun car to drive, with the selectable shift option and the twin cam motor with out flat spots was fun to drive, I liked it and it now looked almost better than when it was bought. I always though it needed another 15 hp to be perfect but that gets around to will it be collectable again. I still don't know. But on this forum, it is the model that gets all the questions asked about them so some where some one is still driving them for some reason, so maybe I am wrong!
It must be close to the time where some reproduction people start looking at high maintainence items for repair parts that actually fit and work.