1995 Saturn SL 1 review from North America

The shifter cable broke at 180K, I believe it was about $180.00 or in the ball park, and difficult to pop in at the socket that connects it to the shifter, took me about an hour.

The water pump went out last year not really that hard to replace, but I have to say Kudos to the Saturn designers and engineers for making everything pretty accessible, it takes five minutes to change spark plugs.

The battery went out close to the time the water pump went out, but the car actually drove twenty miles and died in front of auto-zone I put in the new battery and went to work, made it on time.

Cylinder one spark plug gets fouled, needs to be replaced by itself every three to four months the other three cylinders are fine.

I paid $2,200 and have owned this car for about four years and only spent about $400.00 to fix it other than maintenance, I did all the work at home, the car is user friendly.

The timing chain is a Genius Idea that caused me to buy a Saturn for my wife, after the timing belt went out on my Honda I decided to switch to Saturn, we also had a Ford Escort and that car also had a timing belt, but needed to be replaced at longer intervals, Great job Saturn, I would rather not worry about a timing belt.

My Saturn SL1 gets a mind boggling 42 miles per gallon, I have to admit that I drive 55 miles per hour but I just leave home a little early to give myself time.

The interior of the car is not that roomy but I like the four doors to put stuff in the back seat, If my little bucket ever goes out I will definitely stay with Saturn maybe get me one with two doors which is also wonderful about Saturn, that the SL models with the five speed manual is almost identical to the SC models making it easy for the people who like to get a little grease on their clothes, you don't have to learn how to work on two different cars.