I have had to replace the altranator. It costed me a lot more money than it would have with any other car due to the fact that it had to be special ordered.
I only get about 359 km on 40 lt of gas.
I am in the process of replaceing the head on my car, which is supposed to cost about $5000. And this is a supposed problem that happened in a lot of the Saturn cars, but I found no help ith any of the Saturn representatives that I had talked to.
I go through an unbelievable amount of oil.
Sometimes when the car startes out it will spit and sputter for no reason.
I would never buy another Saturn, mainly because of when I bought it, I immidiatly started having problems with it.
The back seats are very uncomforatable, not anything you would want to sit in for too long.
However if you want a nice sporty looking car, then here is one for you.
All the things that you mentioned above are pretty common among Saturns of that vintage. However, some of those problems you mentioned are either preventable or easily fixed.
The sputtering and lousy gas mileage are probably a failed ECTS, or engine coolant temperature sensor. About 15 bucks at a dealer, and about 15 minutes to replace.
The warped head is probably because you overheated and kept driving. If the needle moves to H, stop immediately.
The oil consumption is because the rings get carboned up. Can be prevented with regular oil changes (5000 km max), or fixed with a Marvel Mystery Oil Treatment.
The alternators are, well...,replace it with one with a lifetime guarantee. That is a common Saturn problem.
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