2006 Saturn ION 2 review from North America

Trans-axle broke in the middle of the road while driving, blocking traffic, putting me in danger, and delaying me picking up my child, three weeks after I bought the car. It was a scary nightmare.

Engine now runs roughly when air conditioner is on, power issues, car is sluggish.

Three times in the past three weeks the passlock system has malfunctioned and the car will not start, making my son miss his school bus and me late to work.

The first time we thought it was a dead battery and had to wait until the AAA battery service opened at 8am to call for help (bus arrives at stop at 6:48am, school starts at 7:30am, I start work at 8am), the AAA guy came out 45 minutes later and it started right up. I described the symptoms and he told me that it sounded like the theft deterrent system had disabled and then re-enabled itself.

When I finally made it to work (son missed three classes, I was four hours late to work) I did some Internet research and discovered that this is extremely common in cold (and I live in Southern California where "cold" is like 30 or 40 maybe) weather and you just have to leave it at ACC until icon stops blinking, turn off, take key out, wait 10 seconds, then it starts.

This has happened three times in three weeks. So now we have to be in the car attempting to start it by 6:25am in 30 degree weather freezing (for our warm So Cal blood) for 10 minutes while waiting for my car to decide to work in order to make his bus stop so I can make my trolley station to get to work/school on time.

This car is two years old, only 41,500 miles, and it's been FAR less reliable than a 10 year old Geo Metro Jalopy I used to own. I didn't think I'd ever own a worse car than THAT one. In fact, I have owned six cars for years each and none have ever left me stranded in all my years of ownership as much as this thing has stranded me in the 2 1/2 months that I have owned it. Even the AAA people (the broken trans-axle tow truck guy and the battery service guy) said that it's a lemon. And if I'm finding hundreds of reports of similar problems, then it isn't my specific car, it's a problem with the model.

Hate it. Worse lemon that my old Geo Metro Jalopy. Looking at new cars now, can't wait to get rid of it. The most unreliable car EVER.