2003 Saturn VUE AWD review from North America

Purchased this vehicle mid 2003 for my now ex-wife after my Ion stood up to being bounced off the road by a tractor trailer in S. Carolina. She had to have certain things, so I purchased it from my local dealer in Tampa, from a dealer in Atlanta. They refused to ship it for free, so I chose to save $700 and drive up to get it.

The drive from ATL to Tampa started out OK, until about half way in when she called me on my cell, to say the car had started shaking badly over 55 or 60 miles per hour. So that Monday we brought the car in with less than 400 miles, and were told something had to be adjusted because it had been rubbing and warped the rotors.

Two months later, while driving it from Tampa to North Eastern PA, that shaking started again. Not even ready for its first oil change and I had it in again. The Saturn service department had the nerve to tell me it was the way I drove that warped the rotors, and that I would have to pay to have them re-surfaced. The driver side rear turn signal had also blown out at this point. After some heated conversation they took care of both.

Low and behold, 7 months later I was back in for the same issues, turn signal out again, horrible shimmy at speed and now the rear door had to be slammed to close. New rotors, bulb and a trip back two days later to have them look at the door again, and I believe bend the hinges with a bar.

Another 6 months, and somewhere around 20K miles, I am in again. Now I am experiencing the the cruising speed downshift and surge that causes complete loss of acceleration as described by another poster. My ex said she had it happen a few months earlier, but I figured it was just how she was driving.

Over a period of a year I took it in 5 times for them to look at it and they could never get it to happen, and reset the computer that learns the shift patterns twice.

Also during that year, I took it in for the brake issue again, and the service guy told me that it was normal with cars to need the rotors take care of every 8 months… Did I have a stupid sticker on my head… I proceeded to tell him I had a Nissan 240sx that I bought with 190K on it as a project car, and had no idea when the last brake job was, drove it to 125K and never had an issue. His response “you have to consider the quality of the two cars you are comparing”, and I think that sums it up, I got good and loud and repeated it since we were in a packed showroom at the time and then thanked him for informing me why I should never by one of their cars.

Now at 4 years of having this thing, it still surges, and the brakes need to be replaced every 6 to 8 months, and all kinds of other crap is going wrong… Take a Saturn Mechanics advice, consider the quality of car….