When GM realized that many import car owners simply would not buy a Chevrolet, it created a new, largely self-contained subsidiary to design, manufacture, and market cars in a whole new way. This new company, Saturn, introduced its first car, a small car, in the 1991 model year. For its first few years it exceeded everyone’s expectations. Though the S-Series was not quite a match for a Civic, many people bought one anyway because it was close enough and the Saturn dealer sales and service experience was far and away the most pleasant among non-luxury makes. A good percentage of these initial customers were people who would never buy a regular GM vehicle.

Still, GM’s traditional divisions, and especially Chevrolet, resented Saturn. Every dollar that went into Saturn was a dollar that would not go to develop new products for them. Also, they felt that with good products they could have won over all those import buyers themselves.

Because of the resulting corporate politics, Saturn didn’t receive the additional funding it needed to develop additional products during the 1990s. The S-Series was redesigned in 1996, but engines and chassis were largely carried over. The new styling was also a bit more bland than people expected from a “different kind of car company” selling “a different kind of car.” Sales plateaued, then declined.

In the last couple of years Saturn has introduced a couple of new products: a midsized car and a car-based SUV. The larger car has sold poorly, while the SUV has done fairly well. Now, for 2003, Saturn is finally replacing the S-Series with an all-new car, the ION.

The ION is the first car off of GM’s new “Delta” small car platform. This is a corporate platform—Saturn doesn’t get its own anymore. Eventually this platform will also yield a replacement for the Chevrolet Cavalier (to be renamed Cobalt). The ION’s engine is also a corporate engine, specifically the 2.2 liter Ecotec found in many other small GM cars. The original Saturn-only 1.9 liter four is dead.

I took a couple of ION’s for a test drive to see whether this car would be the one to revive Saturn’s flagging sales, and to evaluate the state of the small car art at GM. After all, it’s not very often that GM kicks out an all-new platform. This year, oddly enough, there are two. For my initial evaluation of the other, GM’s midsize Epsilon platform, see my review of the Saab 9-3 here. (Click on hyperlinks to read my reviews of other related vehicles.)

Saturn ION Reliability

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Styling

Judging from the proportions of the new ION, it appears that the engineers had the upper hand with this one. The sides are very upright and the front overhang is extremely long. While the ION’s wheelbase is less than an inch longer than that of the S-Series, it’s overall length is over half a foot longer. Since the S-Series was already the longest sedan in its class, the ION is between six and twelve inches longer than the cars it competes against, despite having a similar wheelbase. This runs against a long-term trend that has seen cars’ wheels pushed further and further towards their corners. The resulting short overhangs tend to give a car a stronger stance. In contrast, the ION’s proportions are worse than those of the old S-Series, and generally look awkward.

Still, some ION sedans look better than others. Specifically, the 16” wheels standard with the 3 (Saturn numbers its trim levels 1, 2, 3) help a lot. If you care about looks, you don’t want a 1 or a 2. Some colors are also better than others. To my eye the silverish blue made the best of a not very good situation. With this color and the 16” wheels, the ION didn’t look bad.

On the plus side, it looks different than anything else. Both ends and the roof are defined by arcs, much like a VW Beetle or Jetta. This lends the ION a cuteness that the blander Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla lack. I pointed out one to my wife, who is a fan of cute cars like the Beetle and PT Cruiser. She liked the looks of the ION, so it seems that the designers have managed to get the job done despite the bad package they were dealt.

To further set the ION apart, the plastic panels covering the roof rails (which trace the roof arc from the hood to the trunk) are painted silver, and may be replaced with panels in a number of other patterns, including leopard skin. Very innovative.

Some interior panels can be similarly customized. That’s about the only thing I like about the interior. Like the exterior, it’s unique, but much of the uniqueness doesn’t sit well with me. For starters, the instruments are in the center of the dash, as on the Toyota Echo. I largely adapted to them there, even with the manual car where I glanced often at the tach.

However, the problem is what happens with the area where the instruments would normally be, in front of the driver. Because the A-pillars are raked a great deal to create the continuous arc that defines the roof, the dash is very deep. In front of the driver, a broad expanse of plastic gradually rises until it reaches the base of the windshield. This accentuated the depth of the dash. I suppose this was done to make the front seat feel extraordinarily roomy. However, the main effect it had on me was making me feel as if I was sitting in a minivan.

A long, naked steering column juts out from the front of this broad expanse. The steering wheel attached to it is very strangely styled, with a large oval hub covered in cheap vinyl. The horn and airbag graphics on the hub together with the Saturn emblem resemble the dumpy sad face from a TV ad for an anti-depressant—strange. The rim is connected to the hub by two thick spokes at the 8 and 4 positions. The former is right where I like to hold the wheel. Thankfully, unlike with the similar wheel in the Saturn VUE SUV there is an indentation in the back of the spoke to provide a fingerhold for people who like to hold the wheel there. Still not as good as no spoke there at all.

The interior is further let down by the materials and textures used. The plastics look cheap and feel hard to the touch. Surface detail is minimal. Perhaps the designers felt that grained surfaces were somehow dishonest, as they weren’t really leather, but the lack of grain in the plastics had the opposite effect on me. The words that pop to mind to describe the resulting ambiance include cold, antiseptic, lifeless.

Update: Apparently I'm not the only one who complained about the lack of faux leather graining. For 2004 the instrument panel received a new, grained covering.

The upholstery in the 1 and 2 looks and feels cheap. That in the 3 is much nicer. Leather is an option in the 3.

Accommodations

I’ve already said a few words about the driving position, but I have a few more. On the plus side, a lot of glass provides good visibility all around. With the instrument pod in the center, the view forward is very open. Too open. Beyond feeling like I was driving a minivan, I felt too exposed somehow with nothing but the steering wheel between me and the base of the windshield. Truly surreal. Distortion around the bottom corners of the large windshield doesn't help. On more mundane matters, although I drove an ION 2 with its height adjustable seat in the lowest position, the tilt wheel only felt right very near its highest position. This pretty much negates any gains from being able to adjust them.

The seats themselves have a generic economy car feel to them. Perfectly forgettable. There’s little in the way of lateral support, but that’s fairly typical in this class of car. At least the front seats do feel very roomy.

The rear seat is another matter altogether. The ION is actually a few tenths of an inch longer than a VW Passat, and is just a couple of inches shorter than an Infiniti G35. However, while those two cars provide comfortable rear seats with a good amount of legroom, the ION has the most cramped and uncomfortable rear seat I’ve sampled in a sedan in recent memory. It’s not just the knee room and legroom, though these are on the low side. A Toyota Echo, despite having ten inches less wheelbase and twenty inches less length, has a far superior rear seat, and not only in terms of the specs. What many small sedans offer these days, but the ION most emphatically does not, is a seat cushion high enough off the floor to provide at least some thigh support. This is how the Focus, Jetta, and Echo, for example, provide decent comfort for adults in back. In contrast, the ION’s rear seat cushion is very low to the floor, forcing knees skyward. This low position could also contribute to rear seat passengers feeling a touch claustrophobic, as I at least felt like I was sitting in a tight fitting hole back there. A shockingly large contrast with the expansive, open ambiance of the front seat—this interior has a split personality.

Why is the rear seat so low? After all, this is a fairly tall car, taller than a Focus, Civic, or Jetta. I suspect the arched roofline forced the rear seat down. Even with the low cushion headroom is around the class minimum. Adequate, but not generous.

Cargo volume is a bright spot, both inside the car and in the trunk. The truck deserves special mention. It’s ten to twenty percent larger than others in this class, and even compares well with the trunks in many midsize cars. For even more capacity, the rear seat folds down in two sections. One benefit of the low seat cushion: it stays in place when the seatbacks are folded. No need to tip it forward first as in some others.

On the Road

The weirdness continues on the road. I drove two IONs, an ION 1 with a manual and an ION 2 with an automatic. In both cases the 140 horsepower engine felt plenty powerful to me. Full throttle shifts with the manual chirped the tires. The mode of power delivery was another matter. With the manual, throws are long and overly notchy—and this from someone who likes a little notchiness in a shifter. Still, I preferred it to the automatic. This automatic has fives speeds, unique in this class. In theory, this should allow the gears to be more tightly spaced, so you should never find yourself without a ratio that’s “just right.” Well, with the ION the engine felt a bit soft when cruising, but giving it more gas easily leads to a downshift or two, sending the engine far closer to the redline than I intended. I often felt like one gear was too tall, while the next one down was too short. One second it’s Dr. Jekyl, the next it’s Mr. Hyde.

Then again, with the automatic I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the tach somewhere off to the right. (With the manual I became accustomed to reading the tach in my peripheral vision.) So maybe the engine wasn’t jumping as high up the tach as it felt. Maybe it just sounded that way. Downshifts did elicit a healthy amount of engine noise. Owing to the deep dash, the engine noise seemed to be coming from the next room over rather than terribly nearby. Like a distant but frenetic sewing machine. Especially with the automatic, between the wide open driving position and difficulty of placing the engine where I wanted it RPM-wise I simply could not connect with the car.

Oh, the steering played a role in this as well. The starring role, even. The ION, like the VUE, has electrically-assisted power steering. No old style hydraulics here. The level of assist varies greatly based on speed. At parking lot speeds, effort is nearly zero. At speeds up to about sixty, it remains too light, and very artificial in feel. More like an arcade steering system than one in a real car. Then, on the highway, the steering suddenly felt great. I suppose the assist simply went away, leaving the firm feel and direct feedback of manual steering. If anything, on the highway the steering might be too heavy for some people, though I liked it. Time and again, I find that variable assist systems are simply too light at around town speeds. The ION’s is particularly bad in this respect. I wish car companies would either forget about variable assist, or at least not vary assist over such a wide range.

I read somewhere that the steering is programmed differently in all three trim levels. I might drive an ION 3 just to see if the steering is better there.

Aside from the steering—and that’s a big aside in my book—the ION handles remarkably well. The chassis feels balanced, lean is less than I expected, and even with the 2 the tires stick well. With the 3 and its wider, lower profile 16” tires grip should be even better. Ride quality is also good for this class, if not quite class-leading. Noise levels are about average for this class, which is somewhere in that middle ground between quiet and loud. A Toyota Corolla, for example, does corner as flatly but rides much more smoothly. The Corolla has a refined, luxurious feel to it that the ION lacks.

Pricing

For quick, up-to-date pricing, and especially user-specified price comparisons, check out the website I created: www.truedelta.com. Why yet another vehicle pricing website? Well, I personally lacked the patience to keep using the others. They were too slow and required too much effort, especially when trying to compare prices. So I taught myself some programming and created a site where there is no need to dig through option packages, prerequisites, and the like one by one -- the TrueDelta algorithm figures these out for you in one swift pass.

The following is from when the review was originally written:

If you want power windows and alloy wheels then you’re going to want to go ahead and spring for the ION 3. These features are standard on the 3, and after adding them to the 2 its price is just $300 lower. $300 is a small price to pay for the 3’s appearance-saving wheels and upgraded cloth.

An ION 3 with sunroof, side curtain airbags, and ABS with traction control lists for $17,015. Saturn dealers don’t discount. Other options include automatic transmission ($900), leather ($700), rear spoiler ($250), a CD changer ($240), premium audio ($290), and OnStar ($695). Loaded this car gets awfully close to twenty. Strange that so many premium features are available on a car with such a cheap interior. For this comparison I’ll stick with the $17,000 car.

Saturn has always modeled its products most closely on Honda’s. A Honda Civic EX with the same equipment but no alloys or traction control lists for $17,770, but Honda dealers typically discount this to around $16,700 according to Edmunds. So the true prices are fairly close. Problem is, the Civic is the better driving if more boring looking car. (I have not reviewed the standard Civic. My review of the Civic Hybrid can be found here.)

Still more boring, but very refined for a compact sedan, is the Toyota Corolla LE. Equipped like the Saturn save for traction control, the Corolla lists for $17,215, and costs about $16,200 after the dealer discount. The Corolla feels weaker than the Saturn, and doesn’t corner as flatly, but feels much more natural to drive, has a much nicer interior, and is generally much more refined. It’s the most luxurious in the bunch here.

Another thing about the Honda and Toyota: they appear to get much better gas mileage than the Saturn. The EPA ratings for the Saturn are 26/33, compared to 32/37 for the Honda and 32/40 for the Toyota.

On the sporty end of the compact sedan spectrum, the Ford Focus and Mazda Protégé tend to have strong reputations as fun-to-drive cars. A Ford Focus equipped like the Saturn lists for $17,630, and typically costs about $16,000 after dealer discount and a $1,000 rebate. The Focus is more stylish than the Saturn, handles much better, and has a much more comfortable rear seat. On the downside, its quality rep is spotty and it isn’t as quick.

The Protégé has many of the same advantages and disadvantages, but with a better reputation for reliability. A Protégé ES equipped like the Saturn, but with a CD changer (in a package with the sunroof) and no traction control lists for $17,480, and this drops to $16,800 after the typical dealer discount.

The only competitor that will cost you more than the Saturn is a VW Jetta. A Jetta GLS lists for $19,365 even with the relatively weak 115 horsepower base engine. The typical discount brings this down to about $18,900. Such is the price for German engineering.

Overall the Saturn seems too expensive for what it offers. Just about anything else feels better to drive and offers a better rear seat. A Civic or Corolla is much more refined and more efficient, while a Focus or Protégé is much more fun. And all of these cars are less expensive out the door.

Last Words

The ION has a few strong points but many weaknesses. Many less expensive cars are better in many ways. Easy not to recommend. For an all-new car, very disappointing.

To learn more about my reliability research and sign up to participate in it, or to perform thorough up-to-date new car price comparisons, visit www.truedelta.com. A link to this website and alphabetized links to my other vehicle reviews can be found on my profile page.

Amount Paid (US$): 16,570
Model Year: 2003
Model and Options: ION 2 with auto, ION 1 with manual