2003 Saturn VUE from North America - Comments

After driving the 2003 v4 AWD VUE off the showroom floor with only 50 kilometers registered, a vibration was felt driving at 90 to 100 klms/hour. A few days later I took it back to the service department and waited for the service tech to balance the tires and I'd just go back to work... so I thought.

The service department kept the VUE for 3 more days before I asked for a courtesy vehicle to drive while they were completely taking the drive train apart from the drive shaft to the back wheels. After each repair was attempted below, a road test was done to see if the vibration was fixed. Road test came back negative and vibration continued.

Repairs attempted was:

1: re balance tires;

2: switch tires with another VUE on the lot;

3: take off drive shaft and road test;

4: send drive shaft away for re balancing;

5: take apart rear end and change "clutch pack";

6: change bushings in rear end;

7: update software in transmission to except repairs;

8: change pinion gears;

9: swap axles left to right;

10: look at internal components in transmission.

Saturn brought in a Field Rep. from the U.S. to assist the service tech after it was evident the repair was harder and bigger than expected.

I then exercized the 30 day/2500 klms give back policy I test drove another VUE. After being satisfied that the 2nd VUE drove smooth, I bought it. The next day it was in the shop with a vibration problem just like the first one and now I wait to see what repairs are being done on the first one before I take in the 2nd.

Is there a silver lining to this one?? We shall see. In spite of it all, I am confident in the Service Manager to getting the job done right.

I just posted my problems with my 03 Vue AWD and I have similar problems to yours only I described them as a shimmy/shudder at highway speeds from 50-75 mph. They did a few of those fixes, but not all. Right now my car is in its 22nd day out of service and the 12th day consecutively in Saturn's "final attempt" at fixing the problem. They have not once contacted me to update me, I've had to make all the phone calls and they have refused to replace or refund me my money. I have outright refused a replacement in my last letter to them and will be filing my lemon law suit on Tuesday. Just so you know, the service manager advised me that they have had several cars with this issue, but with one change or another have fixed it, but it is a design flaw that Saturn is aware of.

If your Vue has a roof rack, and all else has failed, ask them to remove the roof rack, and see if you still get the sound. After 5 return trips to the dealership, we went back and asked them just to amuse us and remove it... sure enough, the noise has ceased. Hopefully this was it.

That was very interesting about the roof rack.

But you didn't explain why:

Everything has a natural frequency of vibration (even the human body at about 7Hz) and if even a small amplitude vibration exists from the drivetrain, the roof rack is excited by it and booms, causing the loud noise.

I've heard of this coming from crankshafts, gearboxes and exhausts, but never a roof rack before.

I believe it's called resonance.

We, too, are having vibration issues very similar to this. We have a 2003 AWD 4 cylinder Vue. At highway speeds (about 55-65mph), the car has a lot of noise and vibration-enough to make it hard to focus enough to see out of the rear-view mirror. The car has been taken to our local mechanic 5 times, and to the Saturn Dealership twice for this issue. Our local mechanic believes the issue could stem from the transmission, Saturn claims we need a new rear differential ($2300), because the car runs fine when the drive shaft is disengaged. As yet, this issue is not resolved. I think we'll take it to a third mechanic for another opinion and then see what we will do about it. Interestingly, this issue started last winter shortly after we had the transmission replaced (please read on this site for other information regarding this model's transmission). This is why I'm not ready to jump in to get the rear differential repaired.