anyone own a 2001-06 Saturn Ion ?? DOH!
 

My girlfriend owns a 2003 Saturn Ion and it has to be the worst new car I have ever had any experience with. She has owned it since new and the only thing that seems to work properly is the SERVICE VEHICLE warning light. Its got 53,000 on the clock and runs and drives ok but the brake system and electrical system in this thing is worse than my old Austin Healey. I counted service tags tonight and there are 31 tags that are for service work done for warranty issues and more tags for a couple recall items and of course more tags for regular maintenance. It has had the headlight units replaced twice, the front turnsignal units replaced, the engine feed harness replaced, and four sets of rear drums, etc, etc.

Anyone else have a 2001 or newer Ion and have these kinds of problems with it??..... WTF

A while ago I helped move a bunch of cars from a dealer's lot to one of those weekend "special events" where a bunch of dealers get together in a large mall/theatre/fairgrounds/whatever parking lot. Drive a car, take a 15-passenger van back, and drive another, repeat as neccessary.

One of this dealer's lines is Saturn, so I drove a few Saturns along with a bunch of other new and used cars.

What crap!

I was suprised at the poor driving dynamics of the Saturns. I would have taken any of the used cars I drove over any of the new Saturns. Hopefuolly the new Sky is a better driver, but I came to realize that the only reason people love their Saturns, is because they hate dealers, and Saturn dealers are nice. The whole marketing strategy is that they will treat the customer with enough respect that they don't realize that there are better cars out there.

The first year for the ION was 2003. In 2001 and 2002 they were the S-series cars (SL1, SL2, etc). Perhaps your girlfriend's car had more than is fair share of issues as it was the first year for that model. The IONs have been rated fairly well, and people generally like them.

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I've driven a couple of the SL series saturns. Horrible, horrible things, slow, felt like riding in a 6000# truck. Definitely not the car for me.

friend of mine loves hers. i think it is a 2005 model

she is on her 3rd Saturn. loves them all. one of the first two was in an accident not her fault and the other was up there in mileage so she traded it in.

I have a buddy that sells them and I inquired about the SUV. He told me it was quite possibly the worst vehicle in the world (or something similar).

That's odd. The 2004-2007 Saturn VUE V6 is probably one of the best SUVs in that segment. Five star crash ratings, tops the class in quality rankings, and has a HONDA 250hp 3.5L DOHC V6 and Honda/Aisin 5 speed automatic. Rated at 28 mpg freeway too. At about $22000 well-equipped.

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He spoke of transmission failures, brakes, rattles, gremlins, etc.....

Hey, he just sells em and I was looking to buy. He said he wouldn't let me.