vt_hokie

I'll just miss the dent resistant plastic body panels, but those were gone a while ago anyway! To me, Saturn died when Spring Hill built, polymer clad vehicles stopped showing up at the dealers!

So basically in a couple years Saturn will be all imports. That's not a deal maker for me. Bye bye Saturn.

Same here, I'm done. All that was saved was the name - big deal. Saturn is just a marketing name that'll be used to sell rebadged imports from other manufacturers. So much for the great import fighter proving that the US could still compete!

Saturn Aurora

That thing is hideous. It looks like a badly deformed Audi A6.

A car's 'nationality' is based on where the company is headquartered, not where the product is slapped together in 60 minutes. No one calls mercedes SUVs 'American' because they are assembled in SC, so there's likewise no reason to put 'American' in quotes because a Chevy is assembled in Canada. Let's at least strive for consistancy.

I disagree, I care more about providing middle class jobs to Americans than where the fat cat execs are located. In any case, how would you classify cars like the Opels being brought over and sold as Saturns, or cars like the Korean designed and built Chevy Aveo?

My parents have a 2008 Accord. It's definitely roomy! I like the styling better than the previous gen Accord, even if they ripped off BMW a bit. I do think it looks better than the 2010 Subaru Legacy, but that's not saying much! (I have a '07 Legacy, and I'm very disappointed with the new Legacy design.) The car is too much of a boat to be sporty, though.

Everyone on this website who is a GM fan has lost his/her brand or vehicle, but if you give an excuse of leaving because you were slighted not because of a superior product from another company, then your argument is shallow.

It's both. I feel slighted by GM but also found better products elsewhere. I bought a new Subaru Legacy 2.5i Limited in 2007. GM certainly offered nothing comparable in that price range. At least my Legacy was assembled in Indiana, even though it's a foreign make. I'd rather buy "foreign" car assembled in the US than an "American" car imported from Mexico, China, Europe, etc.

Oh wait, never mind, you or your close ones might have a lot money invested in these institutions and would like to save at least some through other taxpayers rather than loosing everything. Or may be you work in one of those and are therefore calling the kettle black, or you are just ignorant.

Nope, I'm unemployed like a lot of Americans these days. I used to work for Loral, which went through Chapter 11 recently...actually kept my job through the bankruptcy process, but was laid off in 2008. Also, lost a good part of the company match in my 401k that was invested in worthless Loral stock.

You should ride Trek carbon fiber bikes, at least those are made in America and feel proud of it.

I'd actually like to replace my old Giant Iguana with a new Trek, but first I need to find a job!

As for GM, the Saturn SL2 will be the first and last GM car I buy. I loved my Spring Hill built Saturn, with its dent resistant body panels, excellent reliability and ease of maintenance, but GM ruined Saturn by turning it into a standard GM division selling random rebadged GM products before killing it completely.

Shortsighted and egotistical people like yourself who look at the price rather than the value are the main cause why the country is in ramshackle.

Why would you say that? I'm one of the few who is willing to pay more for an American built product rather than support the Walmart-ization of America.

Hopefully GM will fail and go away completely. Companies that earn their success shouldn't have to compete with a company that gets rewarded for incompetence with a taxpayer funded bailout.

I agree with many of the comments here. I'd have to say that while the L Series was largely a failure, the ION really killed Saturn. The VUE, however, remained popular while it was built in Spring Hill and had polymer panels.

My SL2 was the first GM car I bought, and it'll be the last. I hope some other automaker offers dent resistant plastic/composite panels again someday, though.

Saturn became pointless a long time ago, when GM turned it into another redundant division selling random rebadged GM stuff. I miss my old reliable, durable plastic body SL2, but I currently own a Subaru Legacy and I will likely not buy another GM vehicle again.

http://www.iihs.org/ratings/rating.aspx?id=45

http://www.iihs.org/ratings/rating.aspx?id=80

FWIW I bought a SL and a J car in 1994 and the Saturn was of better quality. It was not just plastic pannels as my two delta vehicles (ION and HHR) both use engines built under Saturn patent. Obvioulsly I am one who will set foot in a Chevy showroom.

No question. Better reliability, better crashworthiness, easier maintenance, and better looking imho. An SL1 or SL2 was far superior to a Cavalier of the same vintage.

Well, no need for a halo brand, since the new Malibu is rated "A" by CR. GM can build good cars, and people dont have to pay more for a 'special experience' at a dealer.

Saturn should go back to building sleek looking cars with dent resistant bodies like the old S Series, for those of us who don't want a Chevy with a huge obnoxious grille and gaudy chrome all over the place. Unfortunately, GM has made Saturn styling roughly equivalent to Chevy in recent years.

Saturn was about building an American car that could compete with the imports. It was something for us here in the U.S. to be proud of. If the only way to keep it going is to give it European or Korean imports to sell, I say kill it.

I have seen a ton of Bonnievilles, Lesabres and Park Aves that have plastic front fenders flapping in the wind The rest of the car is ok but the fender took a hit and shattered. Looks bad if your trying to sell plastic cars.

I think that's a different, less flexible type of plastic on those cars.

I think the Astra is ugly, but then I generally don't like boxy hatchbacks. The 2 door Astra isn't so bad, but the 4 door is almost as ugly to me as the Nissan Versa hatch!

If they wanted to sell more Astras, they should have brought over the sedan and wagon versions. A hatchback isn't going to be a high volume seller in the United States.

who cares what goes on at Spinghill unless you work there?

That's GM's attitude, which proves they still don't get it with regard to Saturn. They could be selling the best rebadged imports available under the Saturn name, and they still wouldn't recapture the magic of the real Saturn.

It is easy for someone to get a bad reputation but it is so much harder to regain the respect.

GM is like a ex convict. He may have served his time and may be a really good guy now with a freshly earned PHD. But the neighbors still wisper he is the guy that held up the bank 20 years ago.

Toyota is like Martha Stewart. Yes she may have been convicted of a feloney but to many in the public they feel it was not a real crime because there was no Gun. Toyota makes a mistake or have a problem they get a pass because they are not precived as evil.

GM is like the old Bank robber and has to go out and show and prove how they is no longer the thug and is prepared to give back. GM took a lot of money form people with poor quality cars over the years and robbed a lot of bank accounts when the owners need to repair them. That is trust that is going to be hard to earned.

GM did the right thing and admitted they made crap but they need to follow through with this and market the hell out of what they are doing right today.

GM won me as a customer, when I likely would have bought an import, by creating Saturn and adopting a better management and labor system in Spring Hill. I remember reading Consumer Reports back in the 80's and early 90's, when aside from maybe the Ford Crown Vic/Mercury Grand Marquis, all the domestic cars were getting much worse than average reliability ratings while the Japanese were consistently above average. Then along comes Saturn, which actually got better or much better than average reliability marks. That's when GM proved it could change for the better.

Then GM lost me as a customer when they dismantled everything different about Saturn, and turned it into another crappy standard GM division. Not surprisingly, Saturn's reliability reputation went to s**t.

why would i want a buick or chevy? i don't. they are dull cheap old person rides.

They're whatever GM makes them at the time. It's just a name on a badge. You could take a BMW M3 and badge it as a Buick or Chevy...wouldn't change the sustance of the car.

Then how do you explaine the 5-6 MM panel gaps when everyone else has 3 MM.

It may seem small on paper but people notice this anymore and they equal it with quality.

Also explain to them whrn the body make noise as it pops and cracks in the summer sun as it expands.

I tell people my Fiero is talking to me when it make al sorts of noise in the hot sun at a car show.

I think people who care more about a couple mm difference in panel gaps than about preventing dings and dents are foolish. Personally, I'll take a car with larger panel gaps that still looks new years down the road. Take a car to any crowded parking lot and it's only a matter of time until some inconsiderate person opens his/her door into the side of your car, or neglects to put away a shopping cart which then rolls into your car, or whatever. Who cares about freaking panel gaps when cars are so fragile that they accumulate unsightly dings from normal everyday use?

Oh, and I can't say I ever heard my Saturn's body pop or crack.

And what's the point of having all these different divisions if they're not going to cater to different people? GM has several other divisions for people who care about stupid crap like panel gaps. How about giving those of us who think otherwise a choice?

Call it a Saturn, call it a Chevy, call it Buick, call it Fred for all I care, just build a car with dent resistant plastic body panels!

I would like to see GM develop a car that can run on human feces and reach speeds approaching Mach 6.

I think you will be seeing the small cars you are asking for, but they may not wear the Saturn badge.

Or have durable plastic body panels instead of easily dented thin sheetmetal.

Lutz didn't kill the S-series. Saturn did that to themselves with the ION.

The ION was a disaster. I don't know who decided that Saturn buyers wanted cute, feminine cars with extremely weird styling. I guess they were going for some alternative marketing thing of the sort that worked for Macintosh. But it wasn't done right with Saturn. The circle theme evident in the exterior and interior styling of the first ION reminded me of the equally disastrous oval themed Ford Taurus redesign in 1996.

Add in crappy quality and one of the cheapest feeling interiors in its class, at a time when you had nice upscale small cars like the Mazda 3 about to hit the market, and it didn't stand a chance. But polymer panels weren't the reason people stopped buying Saturns. On the contrary, it was one of the unique features that defined Saturn and made it stand out. I think sales of the VUE remained high until they replaced the first gen model with that cutesy Mexican built thing. The division is pointless if it's just going to sell a slightly different flavor of Chevys.

In defense of VT hokie, I don't think he is arguing against performance or SUV vehicles, but rather he is upset that he can no longer purchase what he found to be to his liking. My experiences with Saturn are similar to his, my conclusion about other GM vehicles much different.

I guess I'm just bitter because Lutz comes in and obviously his passion lies in performance cars like the GTO, G8, Camaro, etc. But he not only focuses on those, but talks down the economy cars like the Saturn S Series, which hit sales of something like 280,000 per year at its peak. He had made disparaging remarks about the polymer panels among other things. I resent multi-millionare execs telling us what we should want, instead of listening to us tell them what we want. I don't make $50 million a year, and I do care about longevity, and I appreciate things like a reliable, affordable car with good mileage and body construction that resists door dings, rust, etc.

I also care about supporting manufacturing jobs here within the U.S. I don't want to buy a GM car built in Mexico or China. Maybe if more people cared about preserving our manufacturing base and maintaining a strong middle class, we wouldn't be in the mess we're currently in!