Video: Saturn Astra Brings European Handling, Styling to North America

[Charlie]

A new feeditems entry has been added:

Video: Saturn Astra Brings European Handling, Styling to North America

Styling is one of the biggest draws to the '08 Saturn Astra, says reviewer Peter Bohr. "The Astra's chic, European good looks will move the cars off Saturn dealers' lots. If the Astra is Jessica Alba, most of its Japanese competitors are Ugly Bettys."

[1992SL1]

I love how here at Saturn Fans you guys pick and choose what you want out of articles to make the Astra sound like the Goddess of small cars. When I read the Quote on the main page from the Article it made the Astra sound like a dang good car, but when I clicked and read the whole article, parts of it bashed the Astra. Like lack of power, poor rearview visability and small controls, air conditioning being optional and what not. I also love the Ugly Betty part about Japanese Cars. What do I have to say to that, They're hardly Ugly Betty's. Im not here to bash the Astra, I find it to be particulary attractive and should be alright competition in the small car segment. I just find it weird, that in the year or so I've been a member on here (and never posted a single comment) Ive never seen so many articles boasting about one car as much as the Astra. Most of them seem to be from small newstations too. (Or the ones Ive read on have been.) Is it that great of a car, or is saturn fans just desperate to make it look like a great car? It could very well be a great car, but only time will tell, its still fairly new. For right now my Ugly Betty Accord is doing me just fine.
And yes I have owned a Saturn, It was a good car at the time, But I moved on to a better car with superior reliability in my opinion

[ad_astra]

Originally Posted by 1992SL1

I love how here at Saturn Fans you guys pick and choose what you want out of articles to make the Astra sound like the Goddess of small cars. When I read the Quote on the main page from the Article it made the Astra sound like a dang good car, but when I clicked and read the whole article, parts of it bashed the Astra. Like lack of power, poor rearview visability and small controls, air conditioning being optional and what not. I also love the Ugly Betty part about Japanese Cars. What do I have to say to that, They're hardly Ugly Betty's. Im not here to bash the Astra, I find it to be particulary attractive and should be alright competition in the small car segment. I just find it weird, that in the year or so I've been a member on here (and never posted a single comment) Ive never seen so many articles boasting about one car as much as the Astra. Most of them seem to be from small newstations too. (Or the ones Ive read on have been.) Is it that great of a car, or is saturn fans just desperate to make it look like a great car? It could very well be a great car, but only time will tell, its still fairly new. For right now my Ugly Betty Accord is doing me just fine.
And yes I have owned a Saturn, It was a good car at the time, But I moved on to a better car with superior reliability in my opinion

It's not bias by the site administrators. I stalk Google News (an unbiased source) for all articles on the Astra. The vast majority are fairly favorable. Most have a few complaints, but overall think the car is in the range of worthy of consideration to excellent. The least favorable article I can think of is the one from Mother Proof. The most negative stuff I have been able to find is people on random internet forums like this one (although this one is not too bad, most of the discussion is quite civilized and constructive).

[titan12]

And yes I have owned a Saturn, It was a good car at the time, But I moved on to a better car with superior reliability in my opinion

The last line of your post says how your feel about Saturn... Like it or not most reviews favor the Astra... Is it perfect, hell no.. But neither is your Honda..No car is...

[1992SL1]

The last line of your post says how your feel about Saturn... Like it or not most reviews favor the Astra... Is it perfect, hell no.. But neither is your Honda..No car is...

I really wish the number of Astra's sold could be as plentiful as the reviews it gets. Im sure it will fly out of the gates here soon as gas approaches 4/gal. I actually used to be bias towards Saturn, till the problems with the car became too great to handle. I moved on to a Honda Accord with over 200K miles on it, and no problems to speak of, it was sadly totalled in a head on collision. I commend my Honda for saving my life, I have no doubt in my mind that if I had been in my old Saturn I wouldn't have walked away like I did. My bias has now shifted towards Honda, Its all my family buys. We replaced my old Accord with a newer one and its just as great. I still surf this forum and track Saturn quite closely, they were my favorite car company for many years, till I owned one. I really wish I could support Saturn but it seems I've sold out to the "bland Japanese cars". I have, and I'll proudly admit it, but at the same time, Saturn still holds a nice spot in my heart, as I watch them from the sidelines in my nice Accord.

[robert4380]

I think I can sum up every reviewer's opinion of the Saturn Astra with the following analogy:

It's not that the Saturn version of the Astra is such a super duper car. Everyone seems so enamored with it because it's like a "most improved" award. Sure, even the retarded kid in class is bound to earn a B minus once in a while and everyone will then lavish him with praise. As for the kid who continually earns straight As? He'll get his usual pat on the back and not make a huge fuss over it.

And in the case of Saturn, the retarded kid didn't even earn the B minus on his own. He stole the answers from the smart kids at Opel. And YES I KNOW OPEL IS OWNED BY GM, you nutty fanboys. My point is that an AMERICAN automobile division didn't come up with a great new small car. No American company makes a great small car anymore, if they ever did.

I'm also convinced that this "Charlie" dude probably really works for the marketing division within Saturn. That's why we see the constant hyping of product on here.

Let the screaming at me begin.

[titan12]

Calling the old Saturn retarded was a bit much.. I really wish GM would let the divisions over here have the freedom they let Opel have..The S series had that at one time and it sold like crazy..

[Charlie]

I guess I'm the Charlie guy that some folks have been talking about in this thread. You might not agree with all of the reviews that you read, but I try to make them easily accessible for everyone who comes to visit the site. Yes, there are a lot of Astra stories right now, but that's because the car is still being launched and there's a lot of reviews being written about the vehicle. Making it easy for visitors to find reviews is something that I've tried do to for the past 12+ years that I've run this site. The new site just makes it easier for me to "bubble up" the latest links to the front page of SaturnFans.com for everyone to see. If you browse the links directory you'll find tons of reviews for the S-Series and Ion from the old days too.

I love how here at Saturn Fans you guys pick and choose what you want out of articles to make the Astra sound like the Goddess of small cars.

Why wouldn't I pick the highlights from the article? Again, these are legitimate reviews that are posted by legitimate news sources. I try very hard not to post duplicate stories; often one review is picked up by a number of different news outlets. Most of the reviews talk about the authors' feelings about the car -- the good and the bad -- and I'm not trying to hide their opinion. I just put the comments that I like best on the front page. Just about everyone who reads the teaser clicks through the links page to get to the full article, so I'm not hiding anything from anyone.

I'm also convinced that this "Charlie" dude probably really works for the marketing division within Saturn. That's why we see the constant hyping of product on here.

I wish! SaturnFans.com is a hobby for me, and I've followed the company since I was a kid. I'm just an engineer in real life.

Thanks for the comments,
Charlie