SW wagon good for a long road trip?

[roadtripwagon]

Hi all! I've been a fan of Saturn for a while, but have not had the right excuse to get one until now. I'll be going on a 3000+ mile long road trip in the summer and I'm looking for a good wagon or hatchback for that purpose. The car needs to be a manual, reliable and fun to drive for the twisty backroads along the way.

I'm between a SW and an Impreza/Legacy wagon, so I'm wondering, how well-suited would the SWs be for road trips like this, and how fun to drive are they? Any advice or feedback would be appreciated, thank you! They are pretty cars and I have experience working on GM cars, so I hope this works

[roadtripwagon]

My budget is about $5000 in CA if that factors in. I figure I should be able to get a decent SW for that price, and because of how many were made parts should be cheap. Very experienced on working on 80s Pontiac, how similar would 90s Saturn be to that?

[Waiex191]

My longest road trip in my SL2 was Connecticut to Florida and back. It's a good traveling car with good fuel economy and good lumbar support. You will be hard pressed to spend $5000 on one though.

As far as reliability, that is why we have two Saturns in the family. Probably the worst single component in my experience is the starter, and with a manual that is not a failure that strands you.

The '80s GM cars had a lot of added on emissions and vacuum systems. The Saturns were a clean sheet design and a joy to work on.

[TvSteve]

Longest trip in my SW2 was to Colorado. Not one bit of trouble. Took it from NY to Florida a few times. Reliable and good on gas.

[cgg17]

If you do get one, replace the entire cooling system. Everything can be assumed to be original which is going on 20+ years old. Other than that, I would go over the car with a fine tooth comb and replace anything that needs it. Be sure to check calipers and wheel cylinders for any leaks too, as that could be a large issue.

Working on these cars is a dream, as everything comes apart nicely and is well thought out.

With that being said, I have taken my 95 Sl2 with 165,000 miles (at that point) on a 2,000 mile road trip a few summers back. It ran great, was comfortable, got good gas mileage, and did not have any issues.
Just be sure to check your oil at every gas fill up and top it off as soon as it gets below the full mark.

[bumpdraft]

And make a mental note that AmsOil has a higher scorch point than everybody else’s engine oil. If the piston rings aren’t hopelessly stuck on the car you buy, AmsOil will keep them from getting stuck. The Saturn’s Owner’s Manual encourages owners to change their oil every 3000 miles This is good advise.

[roadtripwagon]

Originally Posted by Waiex191

My longest road trip in my SL2 was Connecticut to Florida and back. It's a good traveling car with good fuel economy and good lumbar support. You will be hard pressed to spend $5000 on one though.

As far as reliability, that is why we have two Saturns in the family. Probably the worst single component in my experience is the starter, and with a manual that is not a failure that strands you.

The '80s GM cars had a lot of added on emissions and vacuum systems. The Saturns were a clean sheet design and a joy to work on.

That is good to hear. Would you consider them fun to drive? It sounds like that was not the main point of them, but it would help things out a lot.

Hard pressed meaning they would be cheaper to buy and with parts I hope? It would be nice to leave some room for the interior setup and maybe some suspension upgrades.

That is great to hear, lots of the time on my Pontiac has been spent getting to parts in the cramped engine bay and figuring out all the vaccum leaks and weird sensors.

[Pieliker96]

They're good on gas - I got 38mpg with my auto SW1 on a round trip between Orlando and Chicago while lightly loaded. With a couple hundred pounds of baggage, a passenger, and the AC on, that dropped down to 32 - still quite respectable.

The single-cam models don't have a crazy excess of power at highway speeds so you'll want to be careful when merging and passing, especially if you're loaded down. It did just about handle the hills around Chattanooga - needed full throttle a few times to maintain 70-75.

Bring an extra quart or five of engine oil with you, and keep it topped off at every gas fill-up. My SW1 burns a quart every 1K miles or so, which (from what I've heard) may be on the milder side.

[Waiex191]

Originally Posted by roadtripwagon

Would you consider them fun to drive?

I consider them fun to drive. Only 125HP though, so it is no mustang, miata, or a real sports car.

Originally Posted by roadtripwagon

Hard pressed meaning they would be cheaper to buy and with parts I hope? It would be nice to leave some room for the interior setup and maybe some suspension upgrades.

Yes, would be cheaper. I have seen some overpriced Saturns but never $5000. If your budget is $5K you can buy a nice one and make the suspension all good, buy good tires and still be ahead.

[mattwithcats]

Get an manual SW2, 2000-2002, third generation.
A little smoother running, slightly better mileage…

Do the 5th gear swap, go from a .730 5th to a .605, drops the RPM’s by a thousand…

Do not shift into 5th before 2250 RPM’s, the shift light will illuminate…

Put 205/60R15 “H” speed rated General RT43’s on…
Inflate to 35 front, 40 rear…

Use Mobil 1 ESP in 0W-30, that stuff is slippery…

Go one heat range colder on the spark plugs, NGK BKR6E-11

[dummo]

Uh, YESSS!!!

[mattwithcats]

What I meant to say was
"Wait until the shift light comes on before shifting into 5h".
Usually that's 2250 RPM's...

[Waiex191]

Or for fun, leave the gearing stock and run it up past 5000 RPM.

[toggenburg]

Well, you could also contact this Saturnfans gramma.

http://www.saturnfans.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=269989

Fly out to CT and drive the '94 SW2 back to CA for your road trip??

Here are more photos:
https://www.saturnfans.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=270271

[toggenburg]

selling price is $1800

[Waiex191]

It's an automatic though.

[toggenburg]

Hey, there are plenty of SW automatics which perform well for well over 200K, IF the tranny fluid is changed out at regular intervals. My 98'SW2 I sold 6 years ago and it still runs well. I know several folks who cannot master a clutch and end up trashing it and replacing parts time and time again. It depends on the vehicle history, maintenance, driver habits and faith.

[Waiex191]

The OP said:

The car needs to be a manual, reliable and fun to drive for the twisty backroads along the way.

Which I understand entirely!

[alordofchaos]

I have experience working on GM cars

One of the absolute best parts about working on a Saturn S series is how well documented they are. Seen some really weird/detailed tech stuff on this forum. There's like a dozen threads on clutch replacement for example. Or the thermal resistor inside your AC compressor? Yeah, there's a thread on that.

To the bottom right of your screen is a forum jump, use that and jump to the How To Library for an example of common issues.

Oh, and we have richpin. There is a Saturn-specific video for everything I listed below.

***
I'll be the Debbie Downer on reliability and say, "depends"

If it is already sorted out, yeah - I would hop in my '02 SC2 right now (after throwing oil in the trunk) and drive to California and back, right now, if needed. I'd check oil level at every gas fillup. The car is better on my back than my 09 Grand Caravan or my '17 Hyundai Elantra.

Things that you will need to look at and may leave you stranded:

1) on a manual trans, there is a shifter bushing that can break and leave the shifter floppy and stuck in gear. There is a delrin or stainless steel replacement sold by a seller, beginning with saturnbushing... in the seller name (saturnbushingman, saturnbushinghenni, etc). Last I looked, Delrin was about $10 and SS was about $30.

2) Starter, crank position sensor: starter and CPS can fail when hot but work normally after a cooldown; maybe 20 minutes or so. Failed starter means no crank - not worse really than any other used car, just that these cars are old now. $40 at DB Electric. CPS will cause no spark, $10 (and again, just that these cars are old)

3) radiator - check on the black plastic end tank, driver side. Any cracks, replace.

4) water pump - any weeping, moisture - replace. You probably need to remove fender liner for good look.

5) passenger axle: I'll assume CA = California rather than Canada, lol, because Canadians often specify. Probably not an issue in CA, but the cars that came with steel wheels had a rubber vibration damper just inboard of the CV boot. It collected water (and salt, in snowbelt states) and rusted out. I've snapped two of these now, they just break with no warning. If it looks like it is thinning there, or rusted, it can be replaced with a half axle that does not have the damper.

6) F5 issue. These cars were designed when a cigarette lighter was a cigarette lighter, not a port for all kinds of electronics. Constant high drain on the cig lighter from some modern devices overheats the F5 junction on the back of the fuse block inside the car, killing fuel pump and a few other things that run through it. That said, I have charged my phone or used a GPS for hours without killing it (yet, lol)

***

The SW1 has a 100 hp SOHC engine, stock 14" narrower tires. SW2 is 124 HP., stock 15". Torque is pretty similar, particularly lower end. SW2 has a slightly sportier suspension, more standard amenities.

SW1 has 1-piece seat back, SW2 has adjustable head rest, adjustable driver seat height, and adjustable lumbar support. But the driver seat in any Sx2 will swap with the SW1 seat.

More info in a couple of our sticky threads - check the Swap sticky and 'new and returning s series owners' sticky.

[alordofchaos]

Originally Posted by toggenburg

Hey, there are plenty of SW automatics which perform well for well over 200K, IF the tranny fluid is changed out at regular intervals.

The Saturn with the most miles that I am aware of was an auto trans.

To be fair, the owner changed the ATF every 10k miles. But the trans and engine were 100% original at the 883,000 mile mark, no rebuild/replacement parts other than normal wear (like plugs). Seat bottom had been replaced three times, though.