I’m a fan of Saturn. The dealers, not the products (or the planet). Oh, the product are OK, I guess. But the dealers rock. I mean, despite the fact that the “different kind of car company” was assimilated by the GM Borg years ago, as a group, Saturn dealers are friendly, informed and straight-shooting. Yes, the word “relatively” probably belongs in there somewhere. In fact, considering the justifiably low esteem with which the average car dealer is held, praising Saturn dealers for their business ethics is a bit like saying the average ten-year-old lemonade stand proprietor is a financial genius compared to GM CEO Rick Wagoner. But you have to remember that, in terms of respectful and courteous customer care, Saturn was Lexus for working folks. Cook-outs and all. And as with Lexus, the quality of the cars really isn’t important. You know important, but not that important. Is that worth “saving?” Sure. But GM ain’t savin’ nothin’. That ship has sailed. Still, you can’t blame the Saturnalians at saturnfans.com for wanting to keep the brand alive. And an online petition makes perfect sense. But where’s the justification? And why connect that defense with support for the D2.8 bailout when the feeling is a long, long, long, long way from mutual? Love truly is blind.
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Millions of Americans sign petitions every year against Saturn. Those petitions are called “purchase contracts”, and involve exchanging money for cars that weren’t made by Saturn. I guess those petitions, that are usually financed for 3-5 years, don’t count.
The Saturn debaucle is one of the most easily seen evidences of GM’s institutional inability to understand cars, customers, or products.
They started out with something that really did have a shot at being competitive against the ‘imports’.
The product wasn’t quite there, but it really was kind of close – close enough for many people.
The rest of the car buying experience was handled well enough that people actually LIKED going to the dealership. A dealership that was a division of GM, no less.
They had customers that were loyal. Loyal like people who buy Harleys loyal. Like Harley buyers, they really don’t care that they are not buying the best designed or built product. They’re buying an ‘experience’ or a ‘lifestyle’.
Even HD’s management is smart enough to exploit many people’s need to belong.
Saturn had the ability to get TENS of THOUSANDS of owners of (relatively speaking) boring transport appliances drive hundreds (or thousands) of miles. To Tennessee. To hang out in a field. By the factory.
Any Accord owners heading to a Honda Corp shindig in Marysville Ohio?
Squandered opportunity is the understatement of the decade when used in the Saturn context.
I haven’t seen online petitions do a thing yet. Uwe Boll still makes bad movies, Star Trek: Enterprise still got canceled.
May I suggest to saturn fans, a Star-Trek fan approach: Have a bake sale and buy it off GM for a firesale price.
Not all the dealers rock. Where I live, the Saturn dealer is by far the worst high-pressure dealer in town.
I certainly had a few problems with Saturn dealers during the first six years of ownership. Especially tryin gto get the oil use problem fixed. They really didn’t want to do it. At one point, Saturn of Woodbridge, VA made me fix an almost imperceptible oil leak for $300 in order to get an oil use test done–something that was absolutely unnecessary. (This was probably ~1995, and that dealership may now be run by totally different people with a better attitude.)
I too have noticed Saturn dealers degenerating to the levels of other dealers, and it suprises me that it’s taken so long for this to happen.
Creating a dealer network like this was refreshingly out of character for GM. That being said, I’ve always thought the Saturn brand deserved better than General Motors. It’s a shame that they’ll probably never get it.
And for the record, I think the planet Saturn is a great planet, unlike RF. What other planet provides such an amazing spectacle?
The SL1 and SL2 were wretched cars.
Saturn’s niche back then was the “no-negotiation” model.
Perfect for introverts, dickless dads, etc.
It is sad too, cause Saturn was slowly slowly coming into view for me, if they brought over the full line of Euro Opels without constantly changing them for the American market, I would have definitely shopped them… Especially since Ford will never bring over their amazing Euro cars. Guess Mazda will be the only small car worth a damn in the US market that is also reasonably reliable (ruling out VW).
Yes, they had some strong marketing Mojo back in the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om9DXeycCco
The Saturn Dealer on Fulton Ave in Sacramento where my mom used to take her SL was awesome. $30 got you an oil change, trip through the car wash & a carnation left on the dash.
The Reno one is pretty good also.
It is too bad that they will be getting crammed down in the train-wreck that is GM today while many sleazeball Chevy owners will come out with their store intact.
Yes, the no haggle pricing model turned off a certain segment of the buying population. Of course many of use reading this belong to that minority that derives certain perverse pleasure from the car negotiation process.
For those who traditionally got pwned by stealerships with weak negotiating skills it was a good thing. There was always a “back door” around no-haggle where they could inflate the value of your trade-in.
I must disagree with the contention that Saturn dealers “rock”. We’ve lived through one service debacle after another. Work not done, bad diagnosis, “they’re all like that excuses, the wrong lugs nuts used to secure winter rims/tires (and my wife found out with a scary, aborted ride on Highway 401). The penultimate event was a July 2008 visit when they “lost” our Vue Redline. Yup, lost it. We had to return the next day to get it. Apologies all round, but no explanation as to where it was hiding.
I know from a neighbour with a Vue and from other unhappy customers (who you meet while waiting for them to find your car) that our experience is not uncommon.
We’ve hung in only because other GM dealers are not allowed to do warranty repairs on Saturn vehicles (and we’ve needed lots of warranty repairs including a bad Honda automatic transmission).
Nope, Saturn has lost the plot and termination of this money losing outfit is the only reasonable conclusion.
The SL1 and SL2 may have been wretched cars, but they appear to have been close to immortal. I still see a number of them on the street. But, the point should be the institutional ADD, that kept Saturn from perfecting the cars. Rather than dumping them.
My parent’s last car was a Saturn. This car was their all time favorite. Right before the warranty was to run out we took the car in for something minor like an oil change.
Well they not only washed the car for free but they gave the car a checkup. And they decided that a new power steering pump was in order. This they replaced free of charge. We only paid for the oil change.
I’m with David too — I like the planet. None of the others has such gorgeous rings, only vestigial ones.
Oh, and Lexus came out a year before Saturn — in late 1989 as ’90 models.
210delray :
I sit corrected. Gotta get out more. Text amended.
Saturn started out as an import fighter… then started depending on imports itself.
I own a Saturn
I liked the no-haggle pricing
I guess the macho men like shoving around numbers to basically end up with the same deal I got.
Despite what the uninformed might think, you won’t get a lower price on a similar car at a haggle dealer. You might think you are, but it never works out.
The new Saturns are too expensive for me, they raised the base price of their least expensive car from $12K to $16.5K
I still cannot comprehend why people thought a Saturn buyer who paid MSRP was getting great customer service, while anyone else who paid MSRP was a fool who got screwed.
Hint: If you’re dumb enough to pay full price, you can get the no-haggle experience at any dealership.
“I still cannot comprehend why people thought a Saturn buyer who paid MSRP was getting great customer service, while anyone else who paid MSRP was a fool who got screwed.”
I think the big issue here is knowing what the price is. At a regular dealer, you have to go in knowing that the dealer is going to try to stick it to you and you are going to have to “jew” him down. End result is that you don’t know if the guy after you got a better price. At Saturn, most Honda and Toyota dealers, everyone pays the same.