I fell in love with the Saturn when the very first commercials came out. You know, all those "what is that you’re driving" commercials. Ok, maybe I bought the advertising, but it seems to be holding up. And I had totally forgotten all those commercials ten years later when I was on the phone consulting with a friend about what car I should buy. We were both fishing through Cars.com when a pretty lavender Saturn popped up on my screen. Having just had a really cute red Cabriolet dismissed I tentatively asked, "what about Saturns? Are they any good?" The response was decidedly lukewarm, but this was from a German car snob, so I took it as a positive sign that he hadn’t scoffed. I loaded the Hubby into the car and went to the dealership.

At the dealership we were found by Mike, our first salesman. Since we both looked at him with hooded eyes because we’d been dealing with used car salesmen for two weeks he explained the philosophy. At Saturn they don’t work on commission so whether or not I bought a car that day didn’t matter to the Mike, but if we had questions he could answer all day. Personally, I wanted to see the little lavender Saturn. Upon closer inspection, It wasn’t so great. It looked like it might have belonged to a college girl, probably a Sorority chick whose daddy bought it for her. Just a little on the trashed side and I dared not think when it had last had an oil change. So we found another interesting car, but it wasn’t a Saturn so we went home to think about it.

The next day we went back and Mike was busy so Jay helped us. We cut him off before he gave us the speech again and my husband said, "look, we have $4000 to spend." Jay said "Ok, I’ll go look at the list. Do you have any preferences?"

I wanted a Saturn. My husband joked that it should be purple.

Jay came back with one car, black, that he could lower the price on because it had been sitting on the lot for a while and they needed to get rid of it before they had to send it to auction. We took it out, drove it around and when we stopped to switch drivers my husband said, "You know I think this car is purple."

And so I got my car. Totally low pressure salesmanship. I’ll go back there.

But it needed a radio dial and some touch up paint, so I went back to the dealership. The kid at the parts counter first went out to make sure that we got the correct color touch up paint. It’s Blackberry. He then found my dial and offered to put it on for me. While he was doing that he fixed the equalizer so the sound would be good. He didn’t even tell me he did that.

So about two months later my Service Engine light came on. We took it in and it turned out to need a whole bunch of work. This was the first time at Marhoffer that I encountered someone who was less that perfectly honest. I was sold a couple of things I didn’t need or that could have been done cheaper elsewhere. The lesson here is, in addition to getting any car you buy carefully checked out, don’t trust everyone at the dealership just because everyone else has been so nice. So anyway the car should be totally perfect now right?

Less the 12 hours after I got it home the light came back one. Absolutely fuming I went back to the dealership and cornered the guy a friend had told me to talk to. He was really nice, very trustworthy and found the problem in a very short period of time. He was also so unnerved by me that he called me by the wrong name. Had I been in a better frame of mind I would have enjoyed the fact that the waiting room had donuts, hot coffee, popcorn, hot chocolate, cold pop, satellite TV and more to keep me occupied.

So two more months go by and the light starts coming on the going off for no apparent reason. We call the dealership in a fit and they offer a rental while they keep my car and try to figure out what’s wrong with it. The rental was a 2005 silver Grand Am. And they had my car back to me in about 4 hours anyway. Apparently it’s some kind of bug with the computer and it should only happen in the winter when it’s cold. Except that it doesn’t. I haven’t put my finger on the pattern yet, but I will wait until the light has been on for at least a week solid before I take it back to the dealership.

The other little inconvenience is the security system. If you lock the car with the key fob button it sets the security system and you can’t unlock the door with the key or it starts honking and won’t start. Now, if you know this it isn’t a problem. If, however, your husband is borrowing your car and you just happen to have hit the lock button to lock up the car last time you drove and you happen to be at work when he tries to unlock the car with his key, then it could be a problem.

In other details, in my last car the passenger had to juggle what ever they ha in their hands while putting on their seat belt, in this car cups, purses, books, purchases, etc can be temporarily placed on the dash. You could leave your cup on the dash while driving a suppose, but you would definately end up wearing it at some point in the drive. The clock cannot be set unless the car is parked and off. It took about a week of concentrated fiddling at every stoplight before I figured this out, but considering the way most Americans drive, I'm just as happy that I know other Saturn drivers will not be trying to fix the clock while talking on their cell phones, eating lunch, updating their date books and trying to navigate the freeway at 80 mph. The seats appear to be upholstered with some sort of molded foam that seems plenty comfy to me (and I have a touchy back.) I don't feel the need to wiggle around in the set constantly trying to get comfortable on long trips. As for the roominess of the back, I don't sit there a lot, or at all. It looks pretty good, but I'm also 5'3" so the front seats tend to be shoved pretty far forward so I can reach the brakes. Now if my brother were to be driving it would be probably more cramped, but he's 6'8" (seriously) and with the seat all the way back he would probably still look like he was driving a go-kart (and that's why he drives a Dodge Ram.) I can fit 4 average size American women in the car comfortably provided I pick my junk up off the backseat floor. However, the trunk is freakin' huge! If I were a mobster I could fit 1 large hit man or 2 medium sized snitches back there all without having to take out the spare (which by the by is one of those tiny tires my dad used to refer to as a '10 mile tire.') So far none of the pisans have disappointed me enough to need cement shoes so all I've had to haul has been groceries and about 14 boxes of books to a lecture at a hospital.

It’s a great little car. Runs like a top. Handles well in most circumstances. I’m told it’s a bad idea to follow semis on the highway, but I haven’t tested it out. Has a decent amount of power, but isn’t exactly a racecar. Great gas mileage. It is a little loud at speeds over 55, but the body panels are plastic and they hum. Before I bought the car I looked it up in Consumer Reports and it gets great marks. On the ice and snow it handles like a trooper. It’s gotten in and out of my plowed in steep driveway without any trouble, even when the ice was a foot deep at the bottom of the drive (causing the car to scrape) during the first snow emergency of the year (we had four total.) It’s all around a great little car and I’d buy another one without hesitation. And I’d buy it from Marhoffer.

I’d just be careful of that one guy in the service department.

Amount Paid (US$): 4000
Condition: Used
Model Year: 1999