Faults:

Other than the gasket blowing on the upper end of the exhaust system (where it connects to the exhaust manifold) nothing has failed yet.

General Comments:

Well, here it is, 2008, and the recently purchased 1994 Saturn SL1 has been a champion. Other than the exhaust gasket replacement before the Ontario emissions test, no parts have been replaced.

The seat leave something to be desired. I imagine even when they were new, these seats must have been tedious on long trips. I"m 5'10" and weigh 170 lbs and the seats just don't fit well. The angles are all wrong.

Fuel economy has been exceptional over the past few months and the mechanical reliability has been just fine.

Power is not great. I think it only has about 85 horsepower and the "power" mode doesn't seem to help much.

The body panels have held up well over the past 14 years. Although I bought it only a few months ago, all the panels seem to be original and display only a few minor cracks at high stress points.

Paint has held up well.

Cabin features all continue to work and there is essentially no cracking of the plastics anywhere.

Faults:

My car has been through many battles.

A lot of things have worn out over the year in the interior, but nothing duct tape couldn't fix.

The most annoying thing was my dash lights burning out, and the fabric on the roof keeps expanding and getting lower.

The arm rest on the driver's side door conformed to my elbow.

My seat broke, and is now held up by some kindling and a phone book.

The car leaks a lot if I don't have fresh duct tape sealing the doors.

In the rain, I have to pop the trunk and let the water run off, or it will pour into the trunk.

The truck will not open with the key, but still pops from the driver's seat.

The gas cover worked well too until a deer took it off.

My car developed this neat feature where I can start it and pull the keys out while running. Great for cold days to warm your car up and keep it locked.

My car has about 250,000 miles on it, but stopped counting at 181270.

General Comments:

I love my car. It has been my first car as a freshman in college, and now holds 3 car seats in the back for my kids. The car has been through blizzards, floods, encounters with 3 deer and 4 fender benders (not my fault).

I am confident that the death of my car will come on a sunny day when I unknowingly park on top of a mine sink hole in Scranton Pa where I live, and it will open up and swallow my poor car into the earth, never to be seen again.

Faults:

When we first bought the car, it squealed during start up and had a leak in the power steering. After replacing the power steering, the car ran fine (squealing still during start up). Had the car checked out, but they didn't have much of an explanation on why it squealed. Only at around 140000 we figured out it was just the tensioner, which was a simple fix, and got rid of the squealing.

Now at 150000, there's a large crack in the radiator right under the intake hose, which drains the coolant like no other. Deciding on how to go about fixing it sill.

The car never really has problems overheating. Only during heavy traffic it gets a little hot.

Overall I'm satisfied with my first car! Just looking forward to a new one soon...

General Comments:

Anyone know how to take out the radiator of a 1994 Saturn SL2? Costs of labor? Anything??!!!

Thanks!