"bwp240" (bwp240)
07/12/2017 at 13:09 • Filed to: A Saturn that didn't suck
6
17|
"bwp240" (bwp240)
07/12/2017 at 13:09 • Filed to: A Saturn that didn't suck | 6
| 17 |
I think it was on Top Gear they said that everyone will own a Vauxhall Vectra at some point in their lives. It is a right of passage for the car enthusiast. Well I am proud to say that I owned a Vauxhall Vectra and I enjoyed it, most of the time.
I wish I could have found one of those manufacturer plates for it, that would have been cool.
My 1996 Vauxhall Vectra was known to us Americans as a Saturn LS. Mine was a 2000 with the 3.0L V6. It is most notable for it’s scathing by Jeremy Clarkson on Old Old Top Gear, and just about everything he said was right.
I found my Saturn at a Chevy lot outside of Chicago back in 2008. After spending most of the day looking at used late 90s Camrys and Accords, we stumbled upon the Saturn. After the sales guy tried to push a Mazda Protege, which look like a Fisher Price toy with the dorky mods and the motor from a Cuisinart, we test drove the Saturn. It had 125000 miles on it, full leather, heated seats, and sunroof; fully loaded for 2000. It has decent performance and was much better appointed than the Hondas and Toyotas I looked at previously. Sure it wouldn’t be as reliable, but it was a nice car. The negotiation was really easy, the sticker price was $3999, online was $3499, and the dealer manager offered us $3000. Well, that was easy and the car was ours.
It was the peak of 16 year old freedom, first car and the ability for me to go where I want, when I want. One week after purchase the Saturn decided that it didn’t like the serpentine belt that it had and wanted a new one. After driving 5 miles to a friends house we had it towed to our trusty mechanic the next day. “It is going to be one of those cars” my dad and I thought...
But it wasn’t, it wasn’t a lemon, it worked quite well. After eating the serpentine, I did not have to service the engine for years. I slightly rearranged the front bumper after having an unintentional ice skating fight with a Ford Contour (Saturn 1 Contour 0). Then came the next challenge of the high school car, college. I complicated the matter by going to college in Oklahoma, a place where cars are pelted with sky stones, burnt by trees, thrown onto the roofs of houses, and worst of all, Oklahoma Wal-Mart parking lots.
Look a wagon-ed friend.
Thankfully Saturns are made of plastic and are indestructible (or very destructible depending on velocity). Those thunderstorms could through anything up to the size of golf balls and the plastic body panels wouldn’t care. Little rubs and dings by dumbass college students that can’t drive only left irritating paint marks, but no dents. The Saturn made it through Oklahoma without being thrown into a tree. It even chased a few of those tornadoes and drove into a lake that was formally known as Chickesha. If it could survive 4 years of that, it could survive anything.
Eventually quarterly 1600 mile road trips and subsequent more frequent 300 mile road trips on the beautiful roads of Oklahoma and Indiana, which could best be described as slightly better than North Africa, took its toll. It was beginning to get to the point where shop work was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . This allowed me to gain experience wrenching on the car myself as parts were fairly inexpensive. I was able to change the oil, replace the wiper system when it broke, replace the headlight mount that I broke in that crash, and replace the power steering rack.
Sometimes it got a bit salty...
There is something about your first car. It doesn’t matter what it is from a Camaro to a Multipla, you always have fond memories about your first car and all the antics you did with it. From the mundane such as trips to Sam’s with your roommates to stock up on toilet paper (for kids going to college, that is as good as currency) to punching through thunderstorms for sweet tornado pictures to replicating SNL’s Night at the Roxbury on Halloween (it was a bit obsure to the underclassmen). At one point in its lifetime the car had been closer to Mexico than Canada (which is impressive considering most of it’s life in Chicago). It has been on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Michigan Avenue.
Oops it got inside the speedway again. I thought this was only privy to fancy racecar drivers and their Land Rovers?
I truly enjoyed my Saturn. Sure it wasn’t the 2 Fast 2 Furious import that was popular when I was in high school, but it was a good car. I had it for 9 years and got it to 197,000 miles, much longer/further than what my dad and I expected out of it. I would still be driving it had the repairs not piled up and became hard to justify financially. Heck, if I had the real estate, it would be sitting in my barn for my grandkids to find. The Saturn introduced me to basic wrenching on cars, it also taught me 2 things:
1. It is more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.
2. Good Saturns don’t die, people kill them.
I feel kind of bad that I may have killed my good Saturn (honestly my wallet got got the brunt of the death), the core mechanics were indestructible. But, I look at it now and hope my good Saturn is helping out some other high school or college student make memories with their friends (please don’t destroy it; although after reading this history no one will want it anyways). As long as I don’t find it on Row52 for a number of years, I will be happy.
This is one of the last shots, I hope it has made its way to a good home.
I am excited for my future with the next car. No, I won’t be able to careen headlong into things with the same reckless abandon as I could with my Saturn, but it taught me a lot about cars and really helped me figure what chariot I want for the next step in my vehicular journey.
Hint: It is another rebadged German sedan. Also I’ll need to change my avatar...
Chariotoflove
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 13:28 |
|
Great eulogy!
carcrazydan738
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 13:33 |
|
I used to have a Saturn SC 2 in metallic blue it was scary in upstate NY winter roads but it’s quirky 3rd door that opened up suicide style on the driver’s side made it fun and I thought its quality was almost Celica grade. When General Motors discontinued the brand I traded it in for a Jeep Cherokee but it was pretty reliable and I even took it and showed it in a few cruise night car shows.
bingham123
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 13:34 |
|
cool write up my wife had a vectra when we got together, i hated it and it hated me. the first time i drove it i called it a p.o.s and it promptly died and left me stranded in the middle of nowhere. once we got a new car i drove it straight into a tree, the scrap dealer still gave me £100 for it.
|
bwp240
> Chariotoflove
07/12/2017 at 13:39 |
|
I hesitate to call it a eulogy because it is not dead. It still runs really well, it was just the AC system and subsequent partial repair that killed it financially for me. By now it has moved through the auction block and is somewhere doing something, hopefully serving as a trusty stallion for someone needing a cheap reliable car.
|
bwp240
> carcrazydan738
07/12/2017 at 13:40 |
|
A friend and I thought about making up full show board (like the one below) for it and displaying at Cars and Coffee for grins and giggles.
Flex my boost
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 13:43 |
|
My wife had a Saturn LS thru collage and another four years. By the time she got rid of it had a little over 200,000 miles and was one of the most reliable cars we’ve ever owned. I must admit though the interior was shit and definitely started to go long before the mechanical bits.
404 - User No Longer Available
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 13:45 |
|
Hint: It is another rebadged German sedan. Also I’ll need to change my avatar...
...so you’re going from a Vectra to another Vectra (well, Insignia.)
I guess the Vectra thing applies to me too, considering I used have the LWB Pontiac version.
|
bwp240
> Flex my boost
07/12/2017 at 13:46 |
|
I wanted to get to 200k, got so close. The interior was definitely nothing to write home about. My headliner was falling off, the door handle inside came off, and the CD player didn’t work. But compared to the base Camrys and Corollas I had looked at, the heated leather seats were far superior in every way.
|
Chariotoflove
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 13:48 |
|
I get that. Call it a retirement party then...and go get beer.
|
bwp240
> 404 - User No Longer Available
07/12/2017 at 13:50 |
|
haha so I did. It went so well the first time why not do it again?
|
bwp240
> bingham123
07/12/2017 at 13:51 |
|
That is the interesting part about Saturns (and Vectras), they were either god awful piles or indestructible
|
Flex my boost
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 14:23 |
|
That’s funny because the first things to go on ours were the headliner and door handles. Luckily the CD player still worked (after all it was a time people still used them) but a speaker did blow at one point. (College and loud music go hand and hand)
kanadanmajava1
> bwp240
07/12/2017 at 16:51 |
|
‘96 Vectra can be a very cool car too. Just add a lot of go fast parts and a racing livery.
Illegitimus Prime
> bwp240
07/13/2017 at 03:19 |
|
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
You mean a Ford Mondeo?
pip bip - choose Corrour
> bwp240
07/13/2017 at 06:50 |
|
i had one like the video with Clarkson in it
i loved it, the seats were rock hard and the best i’ve ever had.
Svart Smart, traded in his Smart
> bwp240
07/13/2017 at 15:51 |
|
The L81 V6 was 3.0 liters in displacement. Nice write-up, though.
|
bwp240
> Svart Smart, traded in his Smart
07/13/2017 at 15:52 |
|
Whoops, late night post and written on auto-pilot. Fixed.
