I purchased my 2001 Saturn LS in October. I drove an LS prior to purchase, but not the one I bought, the car I actually bought was delivered from another dealer the day of my purchase.
From the beginning, there was something about the way it shifted. It is hard to explain, except that it just wasn't quite "right". Nor was it bad, it wasn't right. I brought this to their attention, and they said it was fine, that they didn't see any problems.
I brought it up again when the car was about to go out of warranty, probably in early as I drive about 25-30K miles per year, most of them highway. They said the clutch was fine. Each time I told them that I didn't agree with them.
At just under 50K miles, about 48K miles, a piece of the clutch broke off while I was driving. I told them, see, I told you something was wrong with the clutch. They said what happened could have nothing to do with my earlier concerns, and besides, the car was out of warranty. It was a fairly cheap fix requiring little labor, about $150.00. I bring this up, because of all places for the car to break, it was the clutch.
Then at 90K miles, the clutch went out in a very strange way. It would shift okay, and then all of a sudden stop shifting, and then it would shift okay again. It went back and forth this way, almost stranded me at the Grand Canyon, and I ended out having to drive all the way from the Grand Canyon to Phoenix in one gear. Yes, it is possible, and I did it, without hurting the car.
Saturn was stumped. These were odd symptoms. So they accessed their national break records and found a handful of time this had happened to other Saturns, maybe 5 recorded in all their records in the U.S. They replaced my clutch, and it was a big round domed piece with prongs on the inside that had gone bad. Perhaps irregularities in the manufacture of this piece is what was causing what I was feeling in the clutch right from the start. They said it didn't matter why, the car was way way out of warranty.
I understand their point, but the fact is that I emphatically believed from the very beginning that something was wrong with the clutch, and told them more than once about it. When they got inside to replace it, the clutch plate showed no wear, the clutch parts looked like new, they put on the paperwork "zero driver error", no slipping, no popping, nothing, they couldn't believe it, and I made them give me the clutch parts, I have everything. It happens that I have driven manual transmissions for years, am almost uncanny with them, even in hard driving conditions.
The repair cost more than $1,000, about $1,200.
In fairness to Saturn, the car has held up well otherwise, it now has over 120K miles on it, and it drives beautifully. I use full-synthetic oil and there is not even a speck of dirt to be seen in the oil, it is really a good car, the upholstery and dash inside the car have held up very well. All of this, however, doesn't change the fact that I told them from the start that the clutch was bad, and that should have been taken into consideration by Saturn, especially since the clutch came out of the car in perfect condition with no driver error with a very odd faulty part.
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