I wouldn’t worry about the steel panels. Galvanisation and improved paint processes have made rusty cars a thing of the past even in supposedly rainy Britain.
Good question.
Not to hijack, but I’m thinking of buying a Cobalt (early stage–I haven’t test driven one yet). What do you despise about it?
Yep. When my family was looking for a small SUV, I made sure to check out the Vue. What a piece. The doors were lighter than fairy farts and I think I broke off a few of the fake-chrome-plastic rings on the top of the line show model by glancing at it the wrong way. Piece.
Just not my cup of lukewarm tea, really. I’ve driven both the coupe and sedan, and the thing that most put me off is the general perception of flimsy construction, particularly the interior fittings, which seem destined to be shedding bits all over the place long before the loan’s paid off. As for overall dynamics, they handle more or less OK, but the base engines seem to be dragging a lot of weight around. Lastly, while I seemed to attract the attention of every post high-schooler lusting after their first new car in the coupe, the combination of big-bottomed rear end styling, poor rearward visibility, surprisingly heavy doors and indifferent power just bugged me to no end. For some reason it reminded me of the old Monza from the late '70’s, and that wasn’t a good thing.
I haven’t driven one of the high-power versions, and those have gotten decent reviews, but in the regular versions of that class I’d think I’d consider a Nissan Versa, Honda Fit or base-model Corolla long before a Cobalt.
Thanks for the input. The flimsy construction is the only thing that sounds really off-putting to me. Normally I’d go for a Honda or a Toyota before anything else, but the lack of dealerships I could possibly drive to for service means I’m basically stuck with GM, Dodge, or Ford. And the 2008 Cobalts have a few nice features (keyless entry, satellite radio) that I can’t get elsewhere.
I bought my 1994 Saturn SC2 brand new…and I still have it; it looks great, runs great and I only have 85,000 miles on it!
There were some major problems with the battery and the alternator in the first year, but since then, other than some regular maintenance, we have not had a single problem with the car. There is one tiny scratch on the front that only I notice (I think caused by a shopping cart back in 1996) but other than that, the plastic body has held out very well.
I know I will someday have to buy a new second car, but I think it will be a very sad day for me when I have to part with my Saturn.
FWIW, it’s probably the capitalization of “Saturn” he got wrong. This message board doesn’t allow an all-uppercase thread title, so if you capitalize all words, they get changed automatically. Whereas if only one word is all caps (e.g. “RIP Saturn”), it would remain unchanged.
Dude, unless you can tell us what the acronyms SATURN or AURA stand for, please just write them as ‘Saturn’ or ‘Aura’ like the manufacturer does. They do not have to be allcapped just because it looks like that on the bumper.
Actually, Saturn hasn’t been “Saturn” for a couple of years now. They’ve ditched the team concept at the Spring Hill plant (“thanks” to the UAW at other GM plants), Saturns are built in plants all over the world, with many of them being rebadged models from other brands (the Pontiac Solstice and the Saturn Sky are the same car with different panels), and they’ve folded it into GM, instead of having it stand alone.
The following for the Saturn is because the mid-90s versions were all pretty solid cars that could stand up to a LOT of crap and last pretty much forever (my '93 SL2 went 241K without any issues before I bought my new Toyota Yaris last year). They also drove surprisingly well, with quite a bit of zip for something with an engine so small, and got very good to great gas mileage before the general public was putting a huge priority on that. They definitely looked a little cheap… but if, god forbid, you don’t care that much about how shiny your car is, they were really very well put together.
The previous paragraph describes exactly why they never really caught on with mainstream American car buyers. 
My '98 SL2 got 30 mpg from the Bay Area to Death Valley, which includes climbing up mountains. I was damn impressed.
The car before my '92 SL2 was a crappy Datsun wagon, so my Saturn seemed quite well built. The teenage kid next door was impressed by it when I drove it home, so that was a plus too. The old ones looked much sportier, but the newer ones have more passenger space - no more spots on the ceiling from where my hair brushed the roof.
Ah, this is disappointing. I’ve developed a hatred of GM from years of observing of their policies and business decisions, in addition to owning a Buick Regal that had a lot of problems. I set the hatred aside when my wife wanted to buy a Saturn Ion. I was OK with it because of the perceived separation of Saturn from the core of GM. We’ve been very pleased with the car and it has held up very well for these four years. (And yes, I do drive it without diminishing my manhood.)
I had not realized the assimilation of Saturn back into the GM Collective that Tuckerfan mentions, and the OP firmly puts my interest in Saturn to rest (In Pace even.) I’ll go back to Toyota for the next car.
I own two Saturns. My 1993 is running great and is in much better shape than the Chevette was at the same age (and has far more miles).
The original Saturns were also sharp looking cars, and really stood out (in a nice way). By the time we bought our '99, though, they had tried to look like every other car on the road. In a parking lot, I never mistake any other make of car for my '93 (except other Saturns).
But the things that made Saturns a great car back in the beginning are slowly being dropped. The new models leave me unimpressed, and we’ll be definitely looking elsewhere when we go to replace our '93.
The assimilation of Saturn into the GM fold happened before your bought your Ion, or at least was well underway. The newest Saturn models are significantly better then the Ion. If you’re looking at the end result, it’s actually working.
Ah, but now that would involve dealing with the Evil (or Stupidity) that is GM after I became aware of how the hands-off approach they originally took towards Saturn had disappeared. I’m normally a pretty nice guy but for something like this I can be very petty and unreasonable (towards GM, not you, that is).