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Check out his comment that was left here on TheSaturnBlog.com.  Jerry has every right to be upset with Saturn.  He was sold a vehicle that was a problem from the start and no one to help him when it went BANG!

Sorry Jerry!  (I am guessing that was the first apology you have received!)

Jerry Says:

June 26, 2009

To the owners of all 2003 Saturn Vues with VTI transmission:

BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE! In Febuary 2008 my husband and I bought a 2003 Saturn Vue with 56600 miles on it. That same year for the Fourth of July we took our friends to Gatlinburg Tennessee to a cabin we had rented. We, since we had not had our car very long, decided we would drive. We drove down there which is about 8 hours from where we live in Indiana and on the drive back noticed on the highway that our RPMs were acting funny and all of a sudden, with no warning, it just revved up and was unable to move. We were on a major highway and was able to get our car off the highway to a somewhat safe spot. We then called our warranty company (we had purchased a extended warranty plan, not through Saturn) and told them we needed a tow truck and a ride for four people. We had the car towed to a GM dealer in Corbin Kentucky. It was on a Sunday on a holiday weekend and of course, everything was shut down until Monday morning. We managed to get a ride with the tow truck driver to the airport so that we could rent a car to drive the rest of the way home. We finally arrived at the Lexington Kentucky airport about 2 hours and 450.00 dollars later. We rented a car then for another 160.00 dollars and were on our way home thinking that the worse was behind us, but we were so wrong!!! Our troubles had just begun.

That Monday morning I called down to the Corbin GM dealer and explained why my car was dropped off in the parking lot. He then told me that his mechanics would not touch a VTI transmission from Saturn. He then told me the ONLY place that would look at the car was the Saturn dealership in Lexington Kentucky and that he could have it towed there for a fee of about 200.00!!! I then called our warranty company, which is Guardian, and asked them what I should do. They said they had a AAMCO transmission shop that would fix the transmission as soon as they could locate one. I called and talked to the Saturn dealership in Lexington and spoke to the service manager to see what they could or would do for me since this was actually the third Saturn product I had purchased. They basically told me that there was nothing they could or would do for me. I could pay to have my car towed AGAIN and they would not reimburse me anything. If I had the car towed and they found anything wrong with the car from me (or the two previous owners) they would not pay to fix their faulty transmission and it could cost me $5500.00 to repair. As for many families, that is a huge amount of money to pay to fix a car.We had just recently had our then 6 year old daughter diagnosed with cancer and so with our mounting medical bills there was no way that was even an option. Not to mention that we needed a reliable vehicle to get her back and forth to the hospital and her weekly, sometimes daily, chemotherapy treatments. Saturn did not care and was not sympathetic at all. They basically said that there was nothing they could do for us. We then got on line and found out that because the tranny was such a piece of junk Saturn had extended their factory warranty on certain models and years. When we called Saturn and gave them our VIN number they said the car fit the guidelines for the warranty extension but we would still have a $500.00 deductible and if they found any fault they would not cover any of the repairs. We then found out about the lawsuit that was filed on behalf of all the other poor misled people that had bought that car. Saturn KNEW they had made a faulty transmission and instead of doing the right thing on behalf of all of us hard working Americans they REFUSED to do anything about it!!!! I think that is in such poor taste for them as a corporation. I wonder if the CEO of Saturn would put his daughter in a 2003 Vue knowing what a piece of junk it is. He most certainly would NOT because he KNEW it was unsafe and unreliable. He then gave his OK for the rest of us to spend our hard earned cash on it knowing what he was selling and refusing to make right on it just to line his pockets with more of OUR spending cash!!! Shame on him, he shouldn’t be able to sleep at night!!!

When we realized that Saturn would not stand behind their OWN vehicle we went back to our warranty company and had no choice but to let them fix it. They had our car for over a month in Kentucky, all the while we were up here in Indiana with only one car. The transmission place finally called and told us we could pick up our precious VUE. We then rented a car (AGAIN) for over $100.00 to drive down there. We picked up our car and drove it back to Indiana. On the way home my husband thought it sounded strange and the RPMs still weren’t where they were suppose to be. We got home (thankfully) and called our warranty company and explained what we thought was wrong with it. They told us to take it to another tranny shop and have it looked at. They looked at it and said they thought everything was okay. Fast forward another 10,000 miles…. this time we decided to visit wine country with the SAME friends we went to Tennessee with…everything was going good…we were sampling wine, talking, laughing, have a good old time when wouldn’t you know it the tranny went out AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To make a long story short it took another month to fix it again!!!!

We have since decided to trade it in but the kicker is that NOBODY out there will give us even HALF what we owe on it making it very difficult to trade for something decent!!! Most dealers see that car coming and almost laugh us off the lot when we tell them its our trade in….

Just some words of wisdom for all you car shoppers out there…be careful and do NOT give any of your hard earned money to Saturn…they are a corporation of liars and cheaters…they mass produce junk and are so embarrassed by it they won’t even stand behind their own vehicles!!!

Please feel free to give us a call if you have any problems or questions ***-***-****.

Jerry Callahan

From Saturn VTi Transmissions, 2009/07/01 at 11:12 PM