2006 Saturn VUE Redline AWD ... Donor Vehicle
 

I've got a 2006 Saturn Vue Redline in black. 187K on engine/90K on transmission (recall replacement). New OEM wheels. Taken really good care of it since I owned it in 2010. Put new Mugen struts all around.....handles great! AC works great. Driver seat has damage to side (can be fixed by right person). Costco car wash blew paint off passenger doors due to water pressure. Just lost all coolant on interstate and was told I have a cracked block. Rather than see it goto junk yard, thought I would post and see if anyone would want it to clean up with a replacement engine. I love the vehicle but don't have the experience to replace the Honda made engine. I'll post pictures soon. I have all maintenance records that can be turned over with the vehicle....still drives fine... doesn't get hot even when AC is on.

An engine is an engine. If you have any experience replacing ANY engine in a car, you can do a Honda engine. Just be sure to take lots of pictures of where various hoses and electrical connectors go. That's a lot cheaper than buying a new car with $6-700 a month payments for six or seven years. I'd try to find a low mileage salvage yard engine for it if it were mine.

Thanks Rubehayseed! I don't have the experience or shop to do such. I feel somewhere down the line, the vehicle will be one of those unique antique car items and if the right person gets their hands on it, it can be preserved.....that is what I was hoping to do. I have a lot of fresh parts in the car and I just tried K-Seal to see how things run (suggested by an old mechanic...felt I had nothing to lose trying it and he said I drive it so little, it will probably be fine for around my house driving to grocery store and Lowe's/Home Depot). For what it's worth, an old mechanic said it took a long time for the color change when doing a block test so he felt minor problem with the head....the head gasket he feels is fine.

If not a head gasket problem, that would lead me to believe you saw no coolant burning white smoke out the tailpipe before it dumped the coolant. Is that correct?

The problem with that explanation is that when you blow a head gasket, the coolant tends to go right into the cylinders, causing a huge plume of smoke, white smoke out the tailpipe. If head gasket is fine, where was the coolant going before it ran out as in there was none left? Was the block already cracked possibly from some previous trauma? Had you been steadily losing coolant for a while before this happened? If the block was cracked and letting coolant into the cylinders, I would expect you to see at least some white smoke out the tailpipe. But you have not made any mention of that. Please confirm or deny presence of said white smoke.
If Costco blew the paint off your vehicle, I would have sued them personally but that's just me. If it is because the paint was in less than stellar condition, then scratch that.
Some of these are solid vehicles. The problem is they are sufficiently old that the demand for them is very low. I would estimate that 75% of the demand comes from former Saturn owners that loved their vehicles and are looking to replace them with similar models to the ones they owned.

The issue becomes further complicated when they find a vehicle but there are six previous owners and the history of the vehicle is basically unknown. That's not something I would buy unless in a pinch or unless it had catastrophic internal damage that I was knowledgeable enough to fix myself. For all we know, you may be able to find a replacement block as part of a junkyard engine, pull the engine, and swap the block, but since it's a fully assembled engine, it's easier to just put it in and see what happens. A lot of these vehicles go to the junkyard because of crashes. In general that kind of insinuates the vehicle was running reasonably well when somebody got t-boned. So for example, Joe schmo is driving a 2006 Vue tomorrow and makes a left turn in front of a car he doesn't see and gets slammed into. His car was running before he got hit, so chances are the engine is at least functional and you can do various tests to confirm that. Anytime you see a new arrival of an old vehicle with body damage, there's a good chance that the engine and transmission are salvageable. Not always no promises no guarantees, but the junkyard will pull the engine and try to sell it as is likely based on the same logic I just explained.

I'm tired of talking at my phone. I think you get the point. If nothing else, you will learn immensely by taking the engine swap project on. Most of it requires basic tools, some of it yes you'll have to buy some specialty tools.

If you have the funds and the time and somewhere to work on it like your garage. You can do it safely on ramps or jack stands.

No smoke whatsoever from exhaust prior or now when I drive it.... performance is still rock solid! Again, I can run the AC and it is 97-degrees outside and go up big hills in my neighborhood and the temperature stays under 1/2 mark. I never lost coolant until just last week when I was driving on interstate and a plastic elbow piece broke dropping coolant. I got over to a safe place and stopped/turned the engine off just as it got into red temperature indicator.

And none of that detail about the nature of the failure did we know.

You can either drive it into the ground, replace the engine, or sell it with full disclosure.

Not too many Vue folks frequent this particular site. If you are looking to sell, try Saturnfans.com

Have to have a posted starting price or no one will bother with it.

Not trying to chase you. Actually trying to help you.

Does the oil or coolant look like a chocolate milkshake? If not, then you DO NOT have a blown head gasket. I've been working on my own cars for 50 years and have never trusted any type of block sealer to solve any problem for me. If I see white smoke and suspect a blown head gasket, they get replaced. Cracked block, the heads and other components get used and another block is sourced and refreshed. Bottom line it that you didn't tell us the whole story about the plastic elbow and that could have just been due to age and heat. If you can find that part, replace it. But first check the oil and coolant and let us know if either one is milkshake brown. If not, you're good to go and drive it however you need to.

Location And price? Could use a daily and/or work rig until I can get a 1 ton