1996 Saturn SL SL2 review from North America

At around 59,500, the head cylinder cracked. Probably because the dealer who we suspect of providing shoddy, and possibly, fraudulent service never, ever changed the coolant.

The "service engine soon" light has been coming on for months, but the Saturn of San Francisco service department told us not to worry... We checked the coolant ourselves and found it to be orange sludge. AAA still finds oil in the coolant, despite it being flushed twice.

About a year ago, we took it in for an oil leak and tried unsuccessfully to pick it up three days in a row. The first day, they locked the keys in it and it would not start; the second day it would not start again, although they assured me that they had it running earlier; the third day, it still would not start, so they removed the battery and replaced it with another battery (apparently, not a new battery; read on). Upon driving into our dark garage, it became evident that one of the reading lights had been left on... they had been repairing the sunroof for the second time and must have accidentally left it on for those three days. The car still leaked oil.

We brought it to another dealer, and although the records stated that gaskets were replaced the first time, these "new gaskets" were warped and replaced this time at no charge.

Just after our 51,000 mile check up, we went on a 7 hour drive to go camping. Upon our return, the car died in our friend's driveway as we were dropping him off. After Saturn's Emergency Roadside Assistance tried to convince us that we had simply flooded the engine and then reminded us they could do nothing for us as we were over the 3 year/36,000 mile coverage period, we called AAA. They said it was the battery...

We suspect that there is a design flaw in the cooling system that had not been remedied by 1996. The interior was improved cosmetically; it no longer looked like a Subaru inside, but we wish it were as reliable.

We have had one previous Saturn, a 94 SL2, which was stolen in 96. Nothing major had gone wrong with it, except it tended to overheat in city traffic, which we dealt with by running the heat with the windows down to vent it. We feel sorry for the thieves as they have probably long abandoned it...