GM to kill Saturn

[jhu]

Originally posted by: Ktulu

Originally posted by: desy
nope GM is a collection of car companies
I guess you don't know the difference

You're the one that doesn't know the difference. GM is the parent company Saturn, Opel, Chevy, etc. ALL fall under GM. So saying:

GM didn't make Saturn cars good Vauxhaul/Opal and Saab did

Is retarded. Vauxhall IS GM, Opel was GM, Saab was GM. GM made Saturn what it was by using it's other companies to draw from.

Wait a minute. Is Audi a VW? Is Lamborghini a VW? Is Bugatti a VW?

 

[Ktulu]

Originally posted by: jhu

Originally posted by: Ktulu

Originally posted by: desy
nope GM is a collection of car companies
I guess you don't know the difference

You're the one that doesn't know the difference. GM is the parent company Saturn, Opel, Chevy, etc. ALL fall under GM. So saying:

GM didn't make Saturn cars good Vauxhaul/Opal and Saab did

Is retarded. Vauxhall IS GM, Opel was GM, Saab was GM. GM made Saturn what it was by using it's other companies to draw from.

Wait a minute. Is Audi a VW? Is Lamborghini a VW? Is Bugatti a VW?

No, but they all fall under VW AG.

Besides I think was Desy was driving at was GM Europe vs. GM NA.

 

[jhu]

Originally posted by: Ktulu

No, but they all fall under VW AG.

Which gets a little muddied now that Porsche owns most of VW AG.

Originally posted by: Ktulu
Besides I think was Desy was driving at was GM Europe vs. GM NA.

I always thought Opel was fairly independent like Audi, but maybe they're not.

 

[KMc]

Originally posted by: desy
nope GM is a collection of car companies
I guess you don't know the difference

Actually, I would classify GM as a single car company with a collection of different brands. Chevrolet, Cadillac, Saturn, etc. are all just different marketing and distribution groups under the GM umbrella. When I worked there 20 years ago, there was a little more individual design and engineering going on, but these days all the development and manufacturing activities are very centralized. It would be almost impossible to discern the "profitability" of one brand over another because all the costs roll-up to the corporate level.

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: Kaervak
Saturn would have been fine if GM didn't suck them into the fold and turn them into another badge. Oh well, my next car is going to be a Ford anyway.

This.

The older early to mid 1990's Saturns were very different from the rest of GM's offerings, and they were good cars for the money. Some people made fun of the plastic body, but for many people, it was a great feature. Saturn also had a very dependable engine back in the day (1.8-1.9 DOHC IIRC) that was very reliable and had OK power.

My stance is that multiple brands are OK if there is a real difference between them. The Saturn that exists today is just a nameplate difference from the Pontiac or Chevy equivalent. GM shouldn't be suprised that Saturn is going away, they are ones who engineered this demise by making all the brands the same.

Some of the people here also forget the innovative pricing policy that Saturn was founded on as well. 20 years ago, it was MUCH more difficult than today to find the invoice price online and make a bid accordingly. For those people who didn't enjoy or were not good at haggling, they knew exactly what the car cost, and they got it at a good price. Although we often discount marketing, it did really help found what we defined as "Saturn".

 

[KMc]

The original engines were of 2 variants that shared a common aluminum block and were 1.9L displacement - one had a SOHC head and the other DOHC. Another unique innovation was using a lost foam casting process for the block and heads that was pretty much unheard of in high volume production at the time.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: Ktulu

Originally posted by: desy
nope GM is a collection of car companies
I guess you don't know the difference

You're the one that doesn't know the difference. GM is the parent company Saturn, Opel, Chevy, etc. ALL fall under GM. So saying:

GM didn't make Saturn cars good Vauxhaul/Opal and Saab did

Is retarded. Vauxhall IS GM, Opel was GM, Saab was GM. GM made Saturn what it was by using it's other companies to draw from.

No. Opel==Vauxhall==Opel. All those base belong to Magner/Steyer.

 

[Ktulu]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero

Originally posted by: Ktulu

Originally posted by: desy
nope GM is a collection of car companies
I guess you don't know the difference

You're the one that doesn't know the difference. GM is the parent company Saturn, Opel, Chevy, etc. ALL fall under GM. So saying:

GM didn't make Saturn cars good Vauxhaul/Opal and Saab did

Is retarded. Vauxhall IS GM, Opel was GM, Saab was GM. GM made Saturn what it was by using it's other companies to draw from.

No. Opel==Vauxhall==Opel. All those base belong to Magner/Steyer.

Excuse me for forgetting to correct that one.

 

[sandorski]

Saturn's claim to fame was always their Pricing policy. GM pretty much created it just to test that out and to Market vehicles in a Niche kinda way to attract a few more Sales. It seemed to attract a lot of buzz early on and they probably should have really pushed Saturn's Marketing more, perhaps even adopting the Pricing Policy amongst it's Traditional subsidiaries as a Marketing gimmick. All water under the bridge now.

 

[kalrith]

Originally posted by: bruceb
Saturn, in and of itself, was not too bad. But when I test drove one about 10 years ago, I considered it as just too small for me, both in exterior size and interior room. The powertrain was decent then and should be much better now. But they were, and still are, a little on the high side for what you get, price wise.

Totally agree. If every Saturn has a Chevy counterpart, then the brand becomes obsolete. They originally made them and marketed them as being a different brand. If they had stuck with that, then it might have made sense to keep Saturn; however, I'm pretty sure it's been a losing brand all along and probably should've been dropped years ago.

 

[mafia]

Originally posted by: kalrith

Originally posted by: bruceb
Saturn, in and of itself, was not too bad. But when I test drove one about 10 years ago, I considered it as just too small for me, both in exterior size and interior room. The powertrain was decent then and should be much better now. But they were, and still are, a little on the high side for what you get, price wise.

Totally agree. If every Saturn has a Chevy counterpart, then the brand becomes obsolete. They originally made them and marketed them as being a different brand. If they had stuck with that, then it might have made sense to keep Saturn; however, I'm pretty sure it's been a losing brand all along and probably should've been dropped years ago.

Maybe they'll rename it after a different planet. Mercury.. yeah thats a good name... oh wait.. ughh.... Uranus?

 

[Kaervak]

Originally posted by: mafia

Originally posted by: kalrith

Originally posted by: bruceb
Saturn, in and of itself, was not too bad. But when I test drove one about 10 years ago, I considered it as just too small for me, both in exterior size and interior room. The powertrain was decent then and should be much better now. But they were, and still are, a little on the high side for what you get, price wise.

Totally agree. If every Saturn has a Chevy counterpart, then the brand becomes obsolete. They originally made them and marketed them as being a different brand. If they had stuck with that, then it might have made sense to keep Saturn; however, I'm pretty sure it's been a losing brand all along and probably should've been dropped years ago.

Maybe they'll rename it after a different planet. Mercury.. yeah thats a good name... oh wait.. ughh.... Uranus?

GM didn't name it after the planet, they named it after the Saturn V rocket. Saturn was supposed to be a new beginning for GM.

 

[mafia]

Originally posted by: Kaervak

Originally posted by: mafia

Originally posted by: kalrith

Originally posted by: bruceb
Saturn, in and of itself, was not too bad. But when I test drove one about 10 years ago, I considered it as just too small for me, both in exterior size and interior room. The powertrain was decent then and should be much better now. But they were, and still are, a little on the high side for what you get, price wise.

Totally agree. If every Saturn has a Chevy counterpart, then the brand becomes obsolete. They originally made them and marketed them as being a different brand. If they had stuck with that, then it might have made sense to keep Saturn; however, I'm pretty sure it's been a losing brand all along and probably should've been dropped years ago.

Maybe they'll rename it after a different planet. Mercury.. yeah thats a good name... oh wait.. ughh.... Uranus?

GM didn't name it after the planet, they named it after the Saturn V rocket. Saturn was supposed to be a new beginning for GM.

Yeah so why does their logo look like the planet? Furthermore, if they were named after the rocket, would they be considered performance cars? lol. But I didn't look this up, and I don't really care. GM should kill Saturn, and focus on Buick, Cadillac and Chevy. Too much badge engineering.

 

[mizzou]

i love my 97saturn SL2 with the DOHC, very easy to work on for repairs, very cheap to work on, and it has great performance.

 

[Bignate603]

Originally posted by: mafia
Yeah so why does their logo look like the planet? Furthermore, if they were named after the rocket, would they be considered performance cars? lol. But I didn't look this up, and I don't really care. GM should kill Saturn, and focus on Buick, Cadillac and Chevy. Too much badge engineering.

Not to mention the small face that Saturn has NEVER turned a profit. Of course they should cut it loose if it can't make money.

 

[Kaervak]

Originally posted by: mafia
Yeah so why does their logo look like the planet? Furthermore, if they were named after the rocket, would they be considered performance cars? lol. But I didn't look this up, and I don't really care. GM should kill Saturn, and focus on Buick, Cadillac and Chevy. Too much badge engineering.

Easily identifiable logo. Hardly anyone knows what the Saturn V rocket is. I agree that Saturn is nothing more than just another badge now. Before GM sucked them into the fold, there wasn't a single part shared with any other GM product. If GM had left them alone they probably would have been fine. Oh well, moot point anyway.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: mafia

GM should kill Saturn, and focus on Buick, Cadillac and Chevy. Too much badge engineering.

GM already spun off Saturn. Regardless of what happened with the Penske deal, Saturn wasn't going to be a part of the GM brand group. They might have continued on for a few years (presumably through the 2011 model year) licensing models and/or parts from GM to pad their lineup, but had Penske had any balls, Saturn would have been producing their own vehicles according to their own designs (or according to designs licensed from someone other than GM).

What GM effectively did was kill the future Saturn, since they apparently were unwilling to make long-term commitments to Penske to continue making GM designs/tech available for the Saturn lineup. It is quite possible/probable that they did not want any more GM clones out there than were absolutely necessary, hence their unwillingness to continue providing Penske with cars that could be modified and rebranded as Saturns.

Penske also killed Saturn by playing things safe. Granted, seeing Saturn's lineup bloated with Chinese, Indian, and Korean designs wouldn't have been pretty, but I'm sure that Penske could have done something interesting with it . . .

As far as the old Saturn went, I liked the company (and I still drive an '04 Ion 1, arguably the last model truly unique to Saturn <no it's not just a rebranded Cobalt, though it's sort of close>), but the company became a somewhat-overpriced showcase for cars imported from GM's foreign divisions. They even ditched the plastic panels which was one of the best features of their cars. I agree that the Saturn of the '09 and '08 model years had to go away, but there's no reason why it couldn't have gone in a new direction or perhaps back to its roots.

Hell, take the old S-class cars, fix the damn oil leaks, put a 1.6 litre turbo-charged engine in there (ala the Cruze), fix the damn brake fluid pooling problem, and touch up the interior, and you'd have a very nice budget car with good handling/performance and good fuel economy. Of course, the TDI and Fiesta are already providing that to one extent or another, and the Cruze should be doing the same once it hits the market, but still . . . Saturn had a lot of good dealerships. They just needed a better product at a better price.

 

[HannibalX]

I had a 1993 Saturn SL2 that I drove the day lights out of. The odometer quit working at 250k miles (original engine and transmission). After that my father drove it another two years and finally gave it to someone he knew that needed a car. That person still has the car. I'm not sure what the mileage is now but I'd guess somewhere around 350,000 miles. Great little car. It would easily do 33 mpg around town and 40 on the highway. I used to buy gas every three weeks.

Back in those days Saturn's engines, transmissions and chassis were unique to Saturn and weren't found on any other GM car. In the late 90s that changed and Saturn went down the dumper IMO.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think the S-class cars were good, but they never really damaged import auto sales which is what they were supposed to do. The original Saturns were meant to be old-school Civic-like in design (spartan, reliable) without being torqueless wonders, but quality never matched what Honda managed back in the day. My mother had an old Saturn, '94 I think, which worked well and got good mileage, but her brakes squeeled like mad until they warmed up, the interior liked to peel off, the paint on her trunk had wanderlust, and there were other problems. If you got a well-built Saturn the cars were great, but sometimes they just had problems. Maybe it's the one built on Tuesdays that were best? I dunno.

Had every Saturn built run as well as yours did from the start, iFX, the Saturn division never would have copied GM tech in later models (or they wouldn't have done so so aggressively). And, for the record, some of the parts Saturn copied from other GM divisions weren't bad at all. I'm a huge fan of Ecotec engines now that I've owned a car with one, and the turbo-charged 2.0L Ecotec is bad ass. I wish they had rolled out a 1.6L supercharged (Eaton TVS?) Ecotec for fuel economy models somewhere in the GM lineup, but that never happened.

 

[Squisher]

I was working at GM during Saturn's creation. A buddy of mine that I worked with got hired by them. The job application form was like 4 pages of double sided 14 X 17 stock, they wanted to know your life story and they wanted nothing but the best and the brightest.

 

[SearchMaster]

Yeah, I'm from the Nashville area and I remember seeing classified ads in the paper for the Spring Hill plant. TN is a right-to-work state but jobs were paying up to $50/hour.

 

[BudAshes]

Saturn sl2's are awesome. You are just a hater who bought a shit car.