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| 1995 Saturn SC2 in its native habitat. |
Ahh the abyss of the forgotten blog, the written equivalent of, “Why don’t you call anymore?” When last I left this self-indulgent repository of tripe I was looking for a beater car to ply the Baltimore/Washington Beltway. Well, in short, I found a beater, in long, I screwed up. I bought a 1995 Saturn SC2 which in itself is not screwing up; depending on your perspective, but in reality I bought in haste and have been repenting in leisure. The rationale for the early Saturn is sound; they’re cheap and plentiful, relatively reliable, easy to source parts for, get great gas mileage, have a dent proof plastic body and are not tempting to even the most desperate thief. The car has 140,000 miles on the clock and after initial inspection and short test drive seemed to only need brakes, struts and an exhaust. It was ugly and the previous owner smoked in the car but I figured all could be righted with some elbow grease and every spare moment of my dwindling free time. That was in November and it’s now January and the Saturn has spent the majority of those two and a half months perched atop my garage lift like a treed raccoon.
I bought the car in the middle of the great beater famine of 2011 after spending a month trolling Autotrader and Craig’s List within a 200 mile radius of my home. Cheap cars were getting thin on the ground and I was getting desperate. Finally, I saw the ad for the Saturn and at first blush it seemed to fill the bill so I made arrangements to see and drive the car. What follows is a by-the-numbers account of the breaking of all my own car buying rules.
I schemed to leave work early so I could look at the car in the harsh reality of broad daylight but as luck would have it I got caught up and was unable to see the car until almost 7 P.M. Rule number 1: Never look at a car in the dark. I thought about rescheduling for another day but the seller’s mother said that if I couldn’t make it that night she wouldn’t be free again until the following week. Rules 2 and 3: When buying a car from a private owner deal with the owner only, not a proxy and never be too anxious, there’s other carp in the sea. I relented and braved two hours of traffic to look at this bottom feeder.
I arrived in a middle class neighborhood of cookie cutter houses and saw the Saturn, or more accurately its murky silhouette, parked in the driveway. Mom answered the door, handed me the keys and said I could take my time and look but the car didn’t have a license plate so she advised caution on the test drive. Rule 4: If you’re looking at a car that’s not currently licensed or inspected, ask why!
I gave the car a cursory inspection , checked for rust and accident damage, looked for fluid leaks and checked the level and quality of the vital liquids. The dipstick revealed a trace of dirty oil without a burned smell or sign of coolant contamination. It was about two quarts low but I seemed to remember reading that these old Saturns used a quart of oil every 1000 miles or so. Rule 5: Do the research on any old car. You should look at forums, blogs and owner sites thoroughly. As I found out later unloved early Saturns are prone to bad valve seals and cracked blocks or heads. There were the usual moist spots, common to an old car, around the oil pan and valve cover but nothing a cheap set of gaskets couldn’t fix.
The car started willingly and settled into a steady idle with just a faint clack of timing chain slap. I revved the engine and looked for blue or white smoke out back but there was none. On the test drive although the brakes were marginal it stopped eventually. There is a certain feeling to an old car with a lot of miles on it, it still does what you ask but there is a general lack of enthusiasm like a former athlete suffering from depression and a touch of gout.
After a few miles I returned the car and was prepared to make an offer.
Rule 6: take the car on a long test drive to allow it to reach and maintain normal operating temperature. A hot engine allows the metals to expand and expose any leaks.
Mom said she was asking $1500 for the car. In a shrewd bit of negotiation I countered with a ridiculous offer of $1100. Naturally she leaped at the money like a Democrat clutching after Carl Marx’s autograph.
I drove the car the 100 miles home and put an additional 300 miles on it and got 37 miles per gallon. I no sooner finished patting myself on the back when a friend who was following the Saturn in another car commented on the billowing clouds of blue smoke emanating from the exhaust. Alas, it was true and the only explanations I have for not seeing it on the test drive is that the car was filled with no-smoke engine honey or engine sludge from years of neglected maintenance was temporarily sealing the valves. The 400 miles I ran the car plus the oil change must have loosened everything up. A compression check revealed good even compression across all four cylinders so the cylinder head is letting oil sneak into the combustion chamber.
I have been reading the Saturn forums and getting some valuable information. From those insights I have ordered a remanufactured cylinder head and installed it twice (details and photos of that project in a separate entry).
While waiting for the cylinder head to arrive I started down a rabbit hole of “While I’m doing this I might as well do that” projects.
So far I have changed the front and rear struts, front control arms, rotors and pads, rear drums and shoes, outer tie rod ends, the passenger side axel shaft, oil pan, fuel filter, exhaust from the header pipe back to include catalytic converter and muffler, wind shield, spark plugs and spark plug wires. In addition I purged the smoker’s smell by removing the front and rear seats, steam cleaning them and the carpet and extensively detailing the interior. A trip to the local U-pull-it sourced some new door seals and trim to replace the leaky driver’s side seals damaged in an attempted break in or locking the keys in incident.
The Saturn has become a sick quest to right the wrong of a bad purchase by throwing money, time and knuckle skin at it. I am now at the point that if I want to get my money back I have to drive the car for the remainder of my days, be driven to the cemetery in it and use it as my tomb.
Marve Harwell (c) 2012
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