Buying a 96 SL1, where to buy parts?
 

I'm buying a 1996 Saturn SL1 that needs some fixing up (wheel bearings, catalytic converter), and that's what I know of as of now. I searched some for the parts, but idk which is to be trusted and such. Any suggestions?

I personally use CarQuest as a parts source and in general have had no problems. I would also use NAPA. While I have bought parts from O'Reily and Autozone I tend to shy away from them.
At this point in time GM dealers still will sell Saturn Parts. Here locally certain dealers advertise that they are Saturn Friendly. Where ever you are it would pay to ask as some parts are going to be hard to get if they are Saturn only parts and not in the aftermarket network.
I use a generic Hi-Flow aftermarket Catalytic converter. Sort of a one size fits all and have used that converter on both my Saturn and Cars I build that are required to have one. I have no complaints.
Some parts have a reliability problem. The sensor used to detect the temperature of the engine and located on the end of the head on the drivers side was both incorrect and undiscovered for a long time so the aftermarket on this sensor has a tendancy to have the wrong one in stock. It is suggested to by the GM unit from a dealer. Now how long that will be available I don't know. Also the cable repair for the standard shift linkage seems to have a problem with being the right size. Many people have reported problems buying it. It is made by Doorman, an aftermarket manufacturer. Again that part is best bought from a dealer.
I have used many doorman parts though with out a problem and can not knock the manufacturer. Having worked in aftermarket for a while, many times things are reverse engineered rather than manufactured to a drawing. Errors can and do happen. Other parts are contracted for from GM and the should be better.
The problem is basically the car is out of prodution and the last S car was made in what? 2002? GM will drop parts that are no longer profitable to make and stock. That leaves after market, reproduction specialists and junk yards.
Some parts are hard to get now and on some of the newer Saturns which were little more than badge engineered and not very popular and also manufactured in places like Korea, they are already hard to find parts for.

thank you for the swift response. I suppose for the cat, my best bet might be to just take it to an exhaust shop and have them weld on a universal one. For a previous car, I was quoted around 240 to have one welded on (included the price of the cat). As for wheel bearings, NAPA has them for 30 a piece, which I don't think is too bad.

Wheel bearings? It just came to me that the rear wheels the bearing should not be a problem, the front though is a bit of a bear it is a single bearing that is press fitted into the steering knuckle and by defintion it is a non replaceable part. Although I have replaced 2 of them. You need a press and some knowledge how to use a press. The OEM recomendation is to purchas a steering knuckle with the bearing already installed in it, something that can get a bit tricky and pricy to do. Other than having to replace the front bearing a situation I think should be very rare to have to do I have not had a need to do any bearing work on the Saturn S cars. Why is it you feel that they need to be replaced. It to me is rather odd that the need comes up.
As to the cost of the catalytic converter $240.00 seems high to me. I think I have paid some where on the high side of $100 dollars including the cost of welding. I realy do not remember well. The Cat was some where around $110 and putting it in was some where around $40 or $50. But in this area, welding up exhaust systems is pretty much standard operating procedures. Most places bend the pipe and weld things in.

well I'm buying this from a friend's brother. A shop had told him that the bearings are no bueno. As for the Cat, there aren't many exhaust shops in my area, on account of going out of business due to the quality of newer exhausts. I only checked a handful of places but 240 was the best I found. I'm sure there's a better deal out there.

As for the bearings, I'm not 100% sure that the diagnosis is accurate, I haven't even seen the car myself, but my buddy a reliable guy and he knows his way around a car, although he doesn't have the car. I can get my hands on a press and probably get a set of bearings in, but where would I find the steering knuckle? I searched a bit and can't find a location to buy. GM Dealership for that? or is there an online gm parts direct sort of website.

I'm getting this car for a really good price, so if it takes a couple hundred to fix up, that's fine by me. I'm primarily getting it to handle this winter and so I can garage my Honda S2000 (it's low miles with a custom paint job, i'd hate to see something happen to it). I made it about 60 feet past my driveway this first snowfall. Once it warms up, I'm hoping to sell the SL1 for a slight profit, and get something a bit nicer as a DD.

Your best bet is to go to the junk-yard for the steering knuckle. If you get them new from GM youll pay an absurd amount. I got a pair from an older car and I hit them with a wire wheel and threw a few coats of paint on it before I had NAPA press the bearings in. Much cheaper and will last just as long (thats how I did it)
All the bearings on my 99 SL2 went at around 105k miles.
Rear wheel bearings are pretty easy (I just did those today with a disk brake swap) - they're bolt on
I get parts from Rockauto.com alot too

I managed to destroy a knuckle when I tried to press the bearing myself, I would save the headache and just have it pressed by a shop (I dont know about you by you but most of my local NAPAs have small machine shops in them that will do it)

You can buy the cat somewhere else and save too probably, all they do is mount and weld it.
Keep it in good condition and it will treat you well (good tip : check your oil regularly) - could probably sell it to someone looking for a first car or save it for some real nasty days

I know how it is in the snow, my mom used to have a mustang and my sister has a CTS-V. Needless to say, the cts didnt even make it a 1/4 mile when we tried to take it out.
forget the mustang.

@Octavious: You mentioned getting the entire knuckle from a junkyard and then you said NAPA could press the bearings in. Couldn't I just pull my knuckle off, and go to NAPA and buy bearings and have them press them in?

As for the cat, I've been looking for a cheap bolt on to put on myself (I don't weld), but they aren't cheap at all. I'm sure once I start looking around I can find a good deal somewhere. I even know someone who could probably weld it up for me.

Yes, you could (I thought you were looking for a new one to do it so you could drive the car at the same time, then have spares)

Have you seen these? They are direct bolt on. (scroll to saturn, pick SL, then SOHC since its an SL1, then exhaust and so on. standard linking wont work... or search that part number)
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php

I would say look at MAGNAFLOW Part # 23535, It is the cheapest of all the direct bolt-ons and probably built quite well.

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On: 01-15-2012 09:37 PM
@Octavious: You mentioned getting the entire knuckle from a junkyard and then you said NAPA could press the bearings in. Couldn't I just pull my knuckle off, and go to NAPA and buy bearings and have them press them in?
As for the cat, I've been looking for a cheap bolt on to put on myself (I don't weld), but they aren't cheap at all. I'm sure once I start looking around I can find a good deal somewhere. I even know someone who could probably weld it up for me.
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Yuh, you can. As I can do these things myself that is exactly what you can do. When the front wheel bearing went on mine the dealer informed me that it was a non-servicable item. As I basically took a look at it and disagreed I just did it myself. But it does need to be pressed in. I buy most of my parts from CarQuest which in my opinion is just as good as NAPA either of these auto-supply stores should be able to service things for you. They I believe are the premium example of auto-parts stores. Although I have noticed that in the last couple of years CarQuest seems to have put effort into stocking house brand parts. I have yet to have something be a problem.
As to the wheel bearings having serviced my own cars for well over 50 years having all of them go bad at the same time is a bit out of line with anything I have yet to experiance. I had one go bad on my 94 SC2 which caught me by surprise. The second front one has given no problem and the rest of them the same. At the same time I serviced my friends 99 sedan and we had to replace one on it but it turned out that the noise used as a symptom was diagnosed incorrectly and it was not the problem. That is the limit of my Saturn experiance other than a close friend of mine ran a junkyard for a number of years and favored Saturns as cars to rebuild and rent to own.
His comment was:
I love Saturns, they are easy to work on and last forever, and I have them out there with hundreds of thousands of miles and still run reliabily.
I never heard him talk about wheel bearings as a problem.
Anyway, for what it is worth the rear ones are easy and no problem, the fronts have been discussed and they are doable. I just personaly find the thought that all four are bad a bit of a stretch.
The catalytic converter again, I have no idea of the brand name mine is. I had one installed on my Saturn by a local muffler shop and it was a generic Free-Flow catalytic converter of some kind and it works. It is welded in place.
I bought one from my autoparts store and it turned out to be essentially the same catalytic converter and installed it on a car I was building with a fuel injected conversion on the engine that I did. All I can say is it is welded in place, has given no problems and passes smog which is required yearly. Check Napa for availability and if you have some one who can weld it in, that works.
I have done the winter car snow thing to keep things from rusting out do to salt used to melt ice. It is a pain, rust is a pain. That is why I moved to Arizona. I am building a 1976 AMC Hornet with the orginal paint, exhaust sytem and a small hole in the front inner fender well caused by battery acid from the Battery. It will be repainted. But not because of rust, after 35 years of exposure, the paint is shot and it has it's share of parking lot dents.

I believe just the front bearings are shot, not the rears. I suppose if both being bad is a stretch, I'll have to take a look for myself. Perhaps one was bad, and the shop just suggested doing the other at the same time, since an alignment would be in order after pulling the knuckle wouldn't it?

Where is the car now? At a shop? Is it that that this shop is the one suggesting all these parts be replaced and is the car at this point under the control of the shop?
Who is doing the diagnosing?
Can it be driven and diagnosed?
Sounds to me that some one is fishing for work and thus money.
The last "shop" that treated me in such fashion was a chain shop that had frequent turnover of "managers" and employees which seems to be the norm. And after the "associate" explained to me what my car needed in terms of repairs and told me the reasoning was complex and I really did not understand how things worked I pointed out that the number of cars on record that I owned that came through said "shop" requiring alignments after I had gone through rebuilding them that if in their opinion, this one needed them replaced again by the qualified intelegent "asscociate" who I am sure used English as second language and I am not too sure whose reading skills were up to snuff, they could put the car on the ground and I would take it out of there.
And I did.
A couple of years later the second shop I went too that also "had" been doing the same thing, changing staff on a regular basis carefully went through the same explanation on the same type of car and when I pulled the service manual out and pointed at the part and asked to talk to the mechanic, backed off.
The mechanic turned out to be an experianced one who frankly was pretty much following shop procedure on that particular part which generally is no longer adjustable on current model cars basically said.
"I'm sorry, it has been years since I had seen one of these and forgotten you can adjust it"
You need a second opinion I think, and a better diagnosis.
The question sounds like what is the possibility you can actually get one.
To me it is a stretch to have all 4 bearings go out at the same time. It is less of a stretch to have both front one gone, but the car is old enough to be neglected and it could be.
It is a ton of work to get the steering knuckle out, and even more so to get it out with out damaging the lower ball joint. (This from memory, most of them require use of brute force rather than an easy removal procedure. It can be done with brute force too with out damage if you are good at it.) And yes it will need an alignment too and usually does. I guess they are about $60.00 or so now and while pricy are generally needed and worth the expense. AS I am writing I do not remember what it takes to get the lower ball joint out. I have done it a couple of times and it has been more than a few years since I have.
My Saturn seems to hold an alignment pretty well and I have bounced it off curbs at times through not paying attention to what I was doing.