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Ah yes, the history…
After fighting with many repairs on my old, tired, 1988 Nissan 200sx, I decided it was time to trade in for a new car. At this point, the new car just needed to be reliable and economical. Well after a few days of searching, I decided on getting a brand new green, 1996 Saturn SL2 with power door locks, AC, sunroof and a 5-speed transmission.
At first, I wondered to myself, why did I buy this car? It did not take long for the car to grow on me though. With a nice comfortable interior, great gas mileage and a lot of power, what wasn’t there to like? – PLENTY!!! I know, a lot of you guys are probably saying to yourself - oh great, another dick that wants to bash Saturns!! Not at all my friends, continue reading.
Well, I took it in for the 6,000 mile service and I was told that the rear main seal was leaking, OK… so I had it replaced under warranty. Unfortunately I was waiting for the car, so that just set me back a couple of hours, but that’s alright, at least it won’t leak anymore. Right? Well, a few months went by and I brought it in for the 15,000 mile service, again I was told that the rear main seal was leaking, dammit!! OK… let’s do this one more time. Another couple of hours at the dealership, another rear main seal. Now I was really beginning to wonder why I traded in that old Nissan, at least that didn’t leak any oil!!
The Saturn, however, was beginning to grow on me, leaky or not, I still loved it!! Then I took it in for the 21,000 mile service, keep in mind, it had been serviced at every interval between the ones I am mentioning, except everything was OK at those stops. Anyway, at the 21,000 mile service, that @#$% rear main seal started leaking again. I was beginning to get just a tad angry. I have now spent more time getting this car fixed than the old Nissan, doh!!! If it wasn’t fixed this time, the dealership was going to get Saturn involved. Again, a couple hours at the dealership, and a new rear main seal, and I was on my way.
Well, you can probably guess what I found when I left my driveway the next morning. Yes, you are right, that @#$% rear main seal was leaking again!!! At this point, I’m starting to think Lemon Law, but I did not want to get rid of my car, I liked it too much, and I had already tinted the windows and installed a stereo system. There was no way I was going to get rid of it now.
With just a little more than a year and almost 23,000 miles of ownership, I brought it back to the dealer to see what the Saturn people would say. I dropped it off, left with a free loaner car to beat the hell out of for a week, and waited patiently to see what was going to happen. They told me that they were going to replace the block and the crankshaft because the crankshaft was not machined right from the beginning, and this is why the rear main wouldn’t seat right. Cool!!! Problem solved, now I just have to wait until it’s fixed. A couple of days later I had the car back with a new block, crankshaft, rings, bearings etc. Car was running great!!!
Now that I had a car that was fun to drive and reliable as well, it was time to begin experimenting. The experimenting started out first with a couple of little modifications here and there, but ended up turning into the never ending search for more speed and better handling.