2000 Saturn LS from North America - Comments

I own a 2001 LS1 that I purchased used in 2003. I love my Saturn and was looking forward to purchasing the new Aura. My car dealership takes care of me and are honest with me and they stand behind their work. My BCM has just gone bad and I needless to say, I wasn't happy about it, but cars get old and things break down. Cars are not made to last forever. Every make or model of cars has it woes. So many times, people get rid of cars because they get to a point where they are sinking too much money in them to keep them running. That can be any make or model. So, we get them fixed or we get rid of them and buy a new one. How many of us have our very first cars? None of us do! For the dollar, Saturn makes a good product and my customer service experience has been positive. So I think I will stick with Saturn until someone creates a car that never needs repairs. When that happens, it will probably be so expensive that no one will be able to afford it!

I am the owner of a 2000 Saturn LS2 currently with 64,000 miles on it. I have had many problems with this car since I bought it from a dodge dealer about 4 years ago. It started out with my security light coming on and not letting me start the car and that happened randomly for a few weeks then stopped. I also was having problems with my blinkers not shutting off after I made a turn. This problem was a pain but nothing I couldn't deal with by flicking it off after every turn cause the car was well priced and I thought I would fix it eventually.

After having the car for 3 years I started having weird problems like my speedometer went to zero and my service light came on. I took it to a local autozone where they check your service light for free and was told I had the most codes he had ever seen in his life (about 27), but he could not read them because only the saturn dealership was able to. Then proceded to take it into the dealership and they also have no idea what is wrong. There were about 17 transmission codes that came up to which they were jokingly saying well if it had that much you wouldn't have made it here alive. So finally they blame it on my after market stereo system and tell me they reset everything and it should be fine and it was for 6 months.

Six months later I am driving down to the shore with my girlfriend pefectly fine all the way down the highway no noises, smells, or lights. The minute I get into the city portion of the town the service light comes on, the check engine light comes on, the security light comes on, the reduced power light comes on, and it stalls in the middle of the road and almost gets me killed. I turn the key nothing happens it doesn't turn over or anything. I shifted into neutral and try and turn it over and give it some gas and it roars out of nowhere. Then I continued to shift into drive and park my car. I make the decision after giving it time to cool down to try and see how far I can get it so I don't have to pay a towing company as much. I make it all the way home an hour and a half with nothing happening besides my blinker switch starting to smoke and fail to work. I took to the dealership were they said to me no lights are coming on, but we could drive it around for a while to see if we can get them to come on. What a joke! All they could tell me was that 6 things had come up on the computer that good be false readings being as none of the warning lights were up. I was told these were all "big money" repairs and not to rush into anything except the turn signal switch and that will be roughly $300. I immediately called pepboys and said if I bring in the switch how much for labor they told me $100 and I told them I'd be in later that day. I actually ended up buying the turn signal switch from saturn when I went to pick up my car from for $40.

Now three months later my security system is messing up thinking I am stealing the car every time I put my key in to try and start it. The security light comes on then the service light and when I get to my destination it's a waiting game to see if it will start when I want to leave. This time I call Saturn because apparently it doesn't matter whether they have the car or not because either way they have no idea what is happening. The service department says it will cost $1000 to fix it. They are telling me its the ignition switch and its the BCM while trying to talk me into fixing the other things that had come up on the prior diagnostic from 3 months before.

Hopefully it will all get fixed when I replace the BCM which is going to cost roughly $450-$ 500. If not I have no idea what to do being as much car has low mileage and is in good shape. If anyone has any other suggestions I would be glad to take them. Thank you.

My wife's 2000 Saturn LS just had the speedometer stop working. The blinkers also don't turn off after you've turned and the Service Engine light is on as well as the other warning light (can't remember which one).

We just got the car used 2 weeks ago and I don't want to go dumping a lot of money into it. Were there any recalls for this model?

There have been few recalls of anything on the 2000 Saturn LS. I would recommend that you return it to where you got it...2 weeks should be a viable return and if not I would speak to an attorney. This car is only going to cost you big bucks. I know and have shared my experiences previously on this forum several times as things have cropped up.

Would like to know where the BCM ground wires terminate?

My wife has a 2001 L Series and it started having BCM problems a few months ago. First it wouldn't come out of park, so she did it manually by taking off the shift boot and holding down the release. Then it wouldn't start, just turn over and over and over. The keyless entry wouldn't work, and no lights would turn on. Then one day it just magically started working again with no problems.

She's probably driven it a couple thousand miles since then with only the occasional park release issue. Then coming home from a long trip last weekend, we stopped for dinner and came out to find the car wouldn't start again. It turned over and over but wouldn't get any spark. The security, airbag, service and check engine lights were all on. Finally I decided to try and re-boot the system by unhooking the battery and hooking it back up. It worked and started right up.

The airbag light came on and stays on (which has me nervous that it will either not work in a crash, or possibly worse, will just explode out of no-where). The next day, we realized that the odometer had been reset to 0! I tried to convince her to sell it when it first started acting up, but since it was a gift from her parents she felt bad and decided not to. Now we're stuck with a faulty odometer, several hundred dollars of repairs, and who knows how much depreciation. I'd advice you get rid of this thing as soon as you start getting problems.

Also, on a side note, has anyone else noticed how awful the car performs in snow and low traction conditions. There was about 1/4" inch of snow and slush on the ground over the weekend and I couldn't safely get about 35mph without the back-end sliding everywhere. The low traction light lives in the on position during the winter too.

Had same trouble as many - odometer reporting 694,794.

Doors not opening when I removed key from ignition.

Read comments on this site, followed your advice and had BCM replaced. Everything is fine. Cost me $500. Saturn dealer was great.

I have a 2000 LS2 with 55,000 miles. I love my car. Generally runs really well.

I own a 2000 Saturn SL1. I bought the car used from a dealer around 8 months ago. I ended up having to replace the transmission and there are 4 or 5 oil leaks spread out that just showed up. The muffler which looked fine when I bought the car recently broke loose of a strap and thumps around when driving on smooth ground. I've spent around 4 grand on it so far with those and other repairs. I would sell the car before it reaches 50k miles

So last year I bought a Saturn LS2 3.0 with 79,000 miles on it. And I thought the car was great when I first got it. But I guess I'm starting to have issues and having the great Saturn experience...

I've had to do some typical maintenance on it, but I have also had to replace things that should have not broken, such as the turn signal arm at 82,000, which controls the lights too. But needless to say, my BCM just went last night at 90,300, knowing this by seeing what other people have experienced, with the odometer recording 694,xxx and for those people that have not been there, save up around 650 dollars for the fix. I just contacted the local dealer, and was scheduled for the fix, the BCM cost in the range of 320 dollar, and the programing cost 170 dollars, while the installment is the remaining factor. 150 or so... but I just wanted other people to know how much this would cost. I have also learned I'm never buying a Saturn again... I'm going to German cars.

"I'm going to German cars."

If you're looking for reliability, then don't go to German cars. Don't get me wrong, I love German cars, they make good cars, that drive beautifully and are when they are running their engines are smooth and powerful, however, German cars are not reliable. They are some of the least reliable. If you're looking for reliability, then Honda or Toyota is the way to go.

Saturn 2000 LS, Purchased June '09. Great running car. Previous owner only had two issues - AC and O2 sensors. Very solid car and very spacious. No complaints.

I have a 2000 LS2, and my transmisson shifts very hard periodically, and when this happens, the speedometer stops working too!!... It seems the colder it is, the better it works..