When listening to the 2/2 show, I was surprised to hear The Guys say that they had never heard of Saturns having an oil-burning issue. Actually, the claim by the used car salesman has some truth to it. My first new car was a 1993 Saturn SL which burned so much oil that just shortly after the 60K mile warranty expired, I blew a head gasket less than 2000 miles after a routine oil change. (This was after undergoing two oil consumption tests along with dozens of other new car owners at the same dealership. Both tests returned with “oil usage without acceptable range” and “no further action to be taken” stamps across the documents.) The dealership offered to take a few bucks off of the very costly repair as they were “still working out the bugs in this new line of vehicle”, but stated that it was essentially our fault. We chose to pull together our paperwork that we had maintained the vehicle, gathered MANY names of other Saturn owners who were having the same problem, and took the dealership to court. We won our case, but swore we would tell everyone we knew about the horrible experience.
To the man who bought the used Saturn, I hope it wasn’t mine…
I know three saturn S-series owners with a case of cheapo motor oil in the trunk. They check their oil every other fillup and constantly top it off.
A number of people I know also have oil consumption problems with Saturns. It seems that when they stop at the gas station they fill the oil and check the gas.
Any overheating episodes during that 60k miles? Also, a routine oil change (or even a non-routine one) does not have anything to do with a head gasket problem at all if you’re insinuating that the oil change was in some way responsible for that problem.
My sister-in-law traded her 96 Saturn (purchased new) off at 160k miles with no oil consumption problems.
When the oil consumption test was performed, how much oil was it consuming every 1000 miles?
My mistake- the engine seized due to no oil, not blew a head gasket. I think my husband and I blew a gasket 
I can’t remember the exact usage since this was over 10 years ago. Seem to recall it was nearly a quart/1K miles.
I am thankful to hear that Saturn improved their engines, and indeed solved this problem in the early models. I have several friends who have Saturns and are very happy with them. Buyer beware on the very early ones, though…