2001 Saturn L300 from North America - Comments

This is my second Saturn. The first was a 94 SL. When it hit 125,000 miles we replaced it with a 2001 L300. I love the car because it fits me. However it does have it's quirks. We have had electrical problems, where a recall was issued only after I had spent $$$ replacing the tail lights. The recall that fixes the coolant leak problem. THen there are various bulbs that do not work in the car... really annoying. Also had to have the water pump replaced last year.

Now I have a sensor out. My old SL had the exact same symptoms that my L300. It starts jut fine when it is freezing cold outside, but if it gets to above 50 degrees then it gives me trouble. Once it gets going it runs fairly well with a slight miss in the idle and just a little hesitation when I accelerate. When my old saturn did the (which coincidentally was right at 70,000 miles jsut like this one) it was a temperature sensor. It is going into the shop here tomorrow. I am crossing my fingers that it is the sensor and that is all this time.

OF course we have changed the belt, plugs, replaced hoses.. but that is all normal wear on parts. You gotta do that in any car.

I love the fit of this car, I am short and it fits me much better than the accord or camry. But it's little quirks are annoying me. It does not seem to be nearly up to the quality standards that my old SL was. I miss that car.

I have found good service varies from dealer to dealer. I drive an hour away to a different dealer because the one right by me is terrible.

I found this forum the day after I bought my 2001 L300. My Nissan Altima had 253,000 miles and was going to need struts so I sold it instead. If only I had found it a few days earlier... It has however, been very helpful. I just had the rear camber shim kit installed yesterday to pre-empt abnormally quick tire wear (just bought new ones). It has neglected to start 3 times already. I have a code reader and it spits-out the "crank sensor" code every time. The dealer quoted the sensor at $125 which seems high for what it is. I have taken it out to see if there was some blatant flaw, but nope... At least it is simple to replace.

I experience the "hard-shifting" problem that makes the "throw a wrench at the car" light come on about every-other day now. Even though there is no associated code, when I erase the phantom code, all is well again. The dash lights work in shifts and the fuel-gauge needle sometimes does a spastic dance. Other than those few "quirks", it is a decent-looking, energetic car with a nice interior. I will returm to post solutions to my problems.

I just found this forum and all of you have been very helpful. I am a single mom with 2 kids at home still. (16yrs and 4 yrs). I was looking at a 2001 L300, I owned a 91 SL1 and had very little problems with it, now I think I will look elsewhere because I cannot afford to deal with all these problems. Thank you for your honest comments, you have saved a single mom's ck book!!!:)

OK, here we go again. The last time I referred to my 2001 L300 as a Crapturn, today I call it a Saturd. I just spent $1700+ on brakes, rotors, front wheel hubs (to the tune of $388 each)...assured my 'hard shifting' was a thing of the past. WRONG. Now my motor mounts are bad. My engine is actually bumping up and down as the car shifts. Don't buy one... if you are considering it... do not buy... stay away from...avoid...even if someone wants to give you one for FREE, simply say, "No thank you." This is the worst car I have ever owned in my entire life. (and I'm no spring chicken)

If you own a 2001 L300 and you think you may have transmission problems, please have someone check your motor mounts. My car intermittently shifted so hard... clunking hard...and I was sure my transmission was going... until a mechanic showed me my engine lifting up and bouncing back down going from gear to gear... the problem? Motor mounts. I wonder, is there any part of these vehicles from under the car to under the hood that's worth anything? These cars are a crying shame, a disgrace to GM and shame on GM for not standing behind them. How many oxygen sensors have to be replaced before they consider it a recall? How many bad fuel pumps before they have a recall? How many sets of #@#@@$!!@#@#$ tires do owners have to go through before they admit and recall there is something drastically wrong with the alignment of these cars that cannot seem to be rectified??? ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Crapturn L300 2001

New wheel hubs, new rotors, new brakes $1800.

Some sort of solenoid $750

This was in the past two weeks.

If you own one of these cars, start a separate savings account, not for a vacation, or your child's college tuition, but to pay for every lousy stinkin General Motors piece of crap put into these mistakes that will need to be replaced.

Ahhhh...I am one of the 'regulars' on this site. I think everyone else has junked their L300. Quick refresher:: I'm the one that has replaced just about everything there is to be replaced... One mechanic told me it was motor mounts... another said, nothing wrong with the motor mounts... it's another electronic part to the tune of $750... and guess what? I bit the bullet and had everything repaired that could be repaired... (keep in mind if my income matched my car repair bills I would NOT be driving a Saturd/Crapturn). Now something else is making a noise under the hood (by the way, the serpentine belt and power steering pump replacements to the tune of $732 were supposed to fix this noise). So the dealer replaces my BRAND NEW ROTORS AND BRAKE PADS to fix the noise... and, believe it or not, THE NOISE IS STILL THERE!!!

I'm going to lose my mind, my house, my world over this car... I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! Run! Run for your lives from these poor excuse for so called 'vehicles'.

I agree with the poster who recommended having the motor mounts checked when you suspect a transmission problem in a Saturn. My car started jerking recently when the lower gears changed. I took it to my mechanic, he couldn't find any problem, but took special care to look at the motor mounts, and referred me to a transmission specialist. He told me to make sure they knew that I knew the motor mounts had been looked at. They were EXTREMELY honest, and test drove and thoroughly examined my car and even hooked it up to the computer, but could find nothing wrong. They didn't even charge me for their time. They suggested I go to the dealership, as transmissions in my model have a particular design and parts.

Well, here in my state there are only a handful of dealerships now (I wonder why?). I have been treated poorly by the local one before, so I called in vain to every reputable transmission shop to see if any one of them would work on my car. None would, and agreed that my model has a peculiar transmission design and they didn't feel comfortable working on it.

I go to the dealer. They keep the car a week, say it's fixed and charge me $1,400. They say it isn't the transmission, but another related part. I go across town to pick it up and it immediately jerks at 10 mph. I didn't even make it out of the parking lot!!! HOW COULD THEY NOT NOTICE THIS WHEN THEY PARKED THE CAR? So, I got stuck in a rainstorm, my ride to the shop already long gone, on a Saturday afternoon and had no choice but to drive her home (or call a cab, I guess).

Since then I've picked it up 2 more times and it is still jerking. I think part of the reason they have been returning my calls is because I say I know the more I drive it back and forth to them, the worse the motor mounts are being damaged, so I refuse to take it home until I can drive it around the dealership and know it's fixed. By now, I am such a pest I think they just want me to go away... The car is supposed to be ready next week and they super duper swear it will be fixed this time. Luckily for me, my credit card company has been very understanding and has agreed to dispute the charge if the car isn't fixed. Wish me luck!

BTW, I come from a Saturn family - all of us drive them, but mostly the very early, well-made models. My brother's brand new 97 started dying the year he got it and he had the engine replaced last year (luckily our reg. mechanic could do the work and did so for a very reasonable price). Trust me, long gone are the halcyon days of the Saturn owner picnics in Spring Hill, Tennessee... By the way, didn't I read that the 6,000 or so workers at that plant got laid off in March when it closed?

Save yourself the money, the worry, the headache - avoid Saturn.

I'm not alone with Saturn issues, I see! My 2003 L300 with 24,000 miles on it has turned into a rolling trash can. The transmission is slipping horribly, every code under the sun is being found on the computer, the fan crapped out 3 times... you name it, it's happening.

What does the wonderful customer service dip-wads in Spring Hill say? "Did you buy an extended warranty"???

OMG this car has 24,000 FREAKIN MILES ON IT! Is a tranny supposed to go with mileage like that? I think not. My 1994 is still running strong, had leased an '01 then, like an idiot, bought this piece of crap.

This thing is going on the trash heap. I'm getting a real car for a change, not a plastic tonka toy.

Update - after the $1,400 repairs, car is still broken and the mechanic says, "oops! We were sort of wrong, it's actually a different part that's broken. We'll fix it for free - you've been through so much - will be ready on Friday."

I call Friday - car's still not fixed. The new repair is no longer free, either. Well, went and took her back as is and now she's back with my usual mechanic.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing again is to encourage all of you with these problems to PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE report them and the treatment you receive to your local Better Business Bureau! I have met tons of people dissatisfied with the dealership I've been going to, but when I checked the BBB report on-line, there have been no complaints formally lodged in the past 3 years! I suspect this is because you can't lodge anonymous complaints. Do your neighbors a favor - submit a complaint to the BBB and maybe you can save someone else the headaches you're having, maybe (ha ha) it will even make the dealers improve their business practices.

Still, it's the responsible thing to do, IMHO. I'm preparing my BBB complaint right now. Many BBB offices have on-line forms for submitting complaints and databases for searching for complaints by business name.

It's worth it. Checking my local BBB site will be my first step when I'm looking for a dealership for my next car.

I too fell under the "spell" of Saturn, and bought a 2001 L300 in spring of 2002. What a huge, huge, huge mistake. This car has been nothing, but the biggest piece of crap I have ever driven. My husband's 1993 Ford Taurus station wagon with 160,000 miles on is way more reliable than the junk that I drive. It is now, as we speak in the shop getting another fuel pump installed. This will be the 3rd one since I bought the car!!! I too have replaced almost every sensor, belt etc in this car. I will never, never, never buy Saturn again, unfortunately, due to severe illness in my family, and my husband being out of work because of it, I had to use this piece of crap as collateral on a loan, so I'm stuck with it for at least one more year. Wonder how much more it will cost me to keep it on the road!!!

I'm the one that's written before about my $1,400 mistake of going to Saturn for repairs. IF YOU HAVE THE SYMPTOMS OF THE DREADED "REVERSE SLAM" - Be sure to have a mechanic check the car's ECU before you have the valve body replaced. Turns out that's what was wrong with mine. Got a used ECU for under $100, and with labor, the repair was not even 15% of what the dealership charged. I had the car back the next day and it's been driving perfectly ever since.

To add insult to injury, I've had several calls from the dealership to ask about my satisfaction with their service! The first time I got one of these calls, I had to tell the lady, "I can't comment on my satisfaction yet, YOU STILL HAVE MY CAR!" Apparently, no one there has any idea what is going on.

Seriously, though, make sure to get several opinions before going to the dealer to work on the "reverse slam." It might save you a ton of money and time and keep you from having a thrombo...

I have a 2001 L300 and had the SES, Service with the wrench and Reduced Power lights all come on at the same time. The codes all pointed to electrical of some kind.

They tried the Throttle Body. Replacement did not fix it. So now they are saying it is the wiring harness or ECM. They wanted to replace both. So, I asked them to run a continuity test on the wiring to see which one it was. Apparently it is the harness (the more expensive of the 2).

Don't get me wrong, they have been great and have been nice about everything, but it disturbs me that a person that knows nothing about cars is telling a Master Tech how to do the diagnosis. They even had to call the Saturn engineers for this as well.

I am really not sure what to think since I have had no problems with this vehicle up to this point. This was an all of a sudden thing. I was driving, shut it off to go into a store and 5 minutes later when I started it this happened.

Wiring harness replacement is going to cost around $1200 dollars. AT least they are not charging me for the Throttle Body Replacement that did not work.

Well I bought a 2001 L300 last year, USED, from the dealer. It's been a nightmare already.

They replaces the fuel sender TWICE in a year, Oxygen sensor, radio receiver, radiator reservoir... had to fix the rear window alignment...

Now I have a leak on my driveway which they say is the water pump! They tried to trick me into replacing the water pump and timing belt for $800, when I had taken it in for a $70 oil change/tire rotation.

The dealer also tried to charge me $40 for parts and labor to replace two burned out bulbs (which cost $8 at the auto parts store and took me 30 seconds to replace).

When I said that my windshield washer nozzle on the passenger side wasn't working, they tried to make me replace BOTH nozzles, with the understanding that "well the driver's side will eventually plug up, so you might as well do it now, even though it works now."

Turns out it's just plugged and a safety pin cleared out the debris. That was $80 saved!

The girl said that these things plug up "ALL THE TIME" - and I said that I've owned cars for 30 years and have NEVER had the problems I'm having with this Saturn.

Unfortunately I'm tied into car payments for another $6000 so can't dump this piece of crap.

Will take it to a local mechanic for the water pump for only $300 instead of the $480 the dealer wants.

SATURN is more appropriately SATURD.

Reading two comments above, my 2001 L300 had the same problem with the SES, Service and Reduced Power lights coming on out of the blue. This happened over this past weekend. They replaced the battery, terminal and posts (which were also gone), as well as the entire throttle body unit (per the codes in the danged computer), dismantled everything to find out why a cylinder was misfiring - then finally replaced the powertrain control module which did the trick. $1000 later, I have a car. They decided not to charge for the throttle body, and stopped charging on labor early on (when they determined they had no clue what was wrong).

So many of the comments above seem familiar. The car's computer module leads the technicians on wild-goose chases, making them replace parts that don't solve the problem. "We think this will do the trick, or at least will help us get to the problem...". I'm not blaming Saturn service technicians - I think it's the GM/Saturn sensors and modules on the danged car that have made it very difficult and expensive to service.

AndyMac - Boston, Mass.