I bought this car for $600 as a work car with 209,000 miles on it. I have hit a light pole due to some unseen ice on a freshly salted road with 2 inches of snow on top. I also rolled the car up onto it's passenger side about 2 or 3 weeks later, (ice again and lack of tire tread) broke off the side mirror and haven't been able to get it to go back on the car.
Aside from my poor winter driving the car has held up reasonably well for what I have heard from so many people who complain about them all the time. I have heard that they don't last over 130,000 miles if that (guess I proved that one wrong), I have heard about the problem with burning massive amounts of oil, I have to admit I have changed the oil several times mostly due to the fact I am a delivery driver and can put on average 94-130 miles on the car daily, thats roughly once a month oil change maybe twice.
I have had the car since December 2nd of 2003 and as of July 12th 2004 I have put about 8000 miles on the car, good thing it's paid for that would kill a lease mileage allowance. I have to say for 217,000+ the saturn still has plenty of get-up-and-go.
these pics are about a week after I rolled my Saturn on its side so the body work is just a quick patch fix(for those with a good eye).
In the next two pictures you can tell I have become quite comfortable with the interior and had to make it more me :) .This car will eventually be retired from doing deliveries (topper signs are murder on the paintjob).
The body has been fixed and looks much better even though actually buying a new fender and bumper cover would still be a good idea. There have also been some minor changes made.
in case you are wondering about the wing, I was bored. I did have a deck spoiler from an F-Body(Camaro/Firebird) on my Saturn, it looked nice too. If you are wondering about the roof being a slioghtly different color? It is. We had to fill in some rust around the windshield seal and upper door seals, the roof is currently black primer.
The door still needs a little work but, it won't be long... hopefully.
Here's my interior, I have a plan. For now the voltmeter gauge is sitting in the ash tray, don't use it much while driving anymore. The dash and console have been painted using a hammered texture paint, looks better than regular paint and has a cool effect on smooth pieces.
In case you are wondering it is a wedjet eye or the eye of Horace from the ancient egyptian mythologies.Now that I think about it, if you look at it from a positional point-of-view it could be the eye of Ra as well. Explanation: left eye- eye of Horace, right eye- eye of Ra.
This is proof of the mileage.
Unless you are looking at the car, you can't see where the nose was damaged when I rolled it.
So far all the cosmetic modifications/repairs and engine work has been done by me or my wife, except for clutch replacement, I don't do transmissions.
