I have a 2003 L300, I really like that car. I hate it’s service record. Things go wrong on this car that should -not- go wrong on a car this age. Let me (try) to recount the ways.

• Chewed through tires (2.5 sets) like crazy until I had the rear-end control arms shimmed at 80k miles. I’m on the third set of tires at 94k now, and these are wearing much, much better. There’s a TSB on the rear control arms bending, causing the camber to be excessive, and literally impossible to properly align without shimming. The 2004 models (produced months after mine was) came from the factory with the shims installed. Cost me $275 for shims. Not counting the extra set of tires I wouldn’t have needed to buy if the camber had been properly adjustable. I call this piss-poor design. Overall, this one issue cost me well over $1k in new tires, repeated balancing, and improper alignments.
• Power Steering Pump. Started leaking at 40k miles. Finally replaced around 60k miles. Aftermarket, replacement, and reconditions pumps for this car all advertise “engineering above manufacturer specs”. Gee, I wonder why. I was unable to replace this myself, because of a compression fitting that I couldn’t break loose. It took the service department two days to replace, as they had to cut the high-pressure line with a torch and put a new compression fitting on. They couldn’t break it loose either. Cost to have the service done: $700. Had I been able to do it myself, ~$300.
• ECU security system went kaput at less than 24k miles. Replaced under warranty. Ignition / drivetrain lockout kept me from being able to shift the vehicle into drive and run the engine for more than 5 seconds. Nice.
• Hood release cables. I’ve never heard of these stretching / going bad like they do on this car in all my life. I’ve had to replace the hood cable ($80 a pop) every 2.5 years. Of course, the first one lasted until the car was out of warranty.
• Transmission fluid service: Not “user serviceable”. Seriously. There’s no transmission fluid dip-stick. The only place to do anything is up under the car, where a stopcock is placed so that only “service professionals” can access it when the car is on a lift. Pain in the… $189 every time you get it flushed / filled. Recommended maintenance ever 70k miles. I managed to go up to 94k before it was obvious that I was having issues with the viscosity of the transmission fluid. I should be able to replace transmission fluid in my garage for $50 and two hours of time.

All of these problems have been a result of what I’d consider poor engineering / craftsmanship.

I will never throw money at another Saturn. Unless it’s an older S-series — those are easier to self-service from what I understand.

Oh well. At this point, this car is still cheaper to maintain than a new (to me) used car with a loan payment. I’ll run the wheels off this car until it’s more expensive to maintain than it is to buy a decent used car with the cash I have on-hand.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 10:59 am and is filed under Core Dump. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.