Alt Focus: I had a 1990 Ford Taurus. I had it from 16 to probably 26. I beat the fucking shit out of the car, and never replaced anything, just did the oil changes and consumables(bulb or 2, brakes, wiper blades). Only thing one of the four h/sub frame mounts broke and I still drove it for a year or 2. Only reason I got rid of it my parents were selling there 02 Civic and gave me a good deal.
Buddy of mine bought an original Hummer and it was absolutely amazing. The only real kick to the nuts he experienced was when the automatic tire inflation system shit the bed. But yeah, the difference between the original and even the first civilian version was light years depressing.
We were a Saturn family for awhile. I had two coupes, both with manual transmission, that lasted me almost 200,000 each and got incredible gas mileage. My wife had a sedan for 11 years, and we replaced no major parts on it - tires, brake pads, oil changes and spark plugs, that was it. Then we bought a Saturn VUE. The originals looked nice. It had tons of room, a six cylinder with plenty of power and great acceleration, it handled great, and was awesome in the snow. But the damn thing broke down regularly. I had it two weeks, and the alternator gave out on the highway while I was driving my very pregnant co-worker to a meeting. Something called a wiring harness was bad, and the car would, unpredictably, refuse to go faster than 10 miles per hour. The water pump went at about 30,000 miles. The stereo stopped working at around 50,000 miles. Shit, I forget half the things that went wrong with that car. Around 90,000 miles it developed a coolant leak that the dealership could not resolve. Shortly after that it would stall as I tried to accelerate. I got it to local mechanic, who determined the stalling was due to a stuck valve. He also figured out that the coolant leak was due to a bad head gasket that would take a couple of grand to replace. He didn't try to talk me into letting him do it - actually he recommend that, given all of the issues I had with the car, it wasn't worth putting the money into. So at 6 years and about 100K miles I traded it in for a Toyota RAV4, and couple of years after that Saturn ceased to exist. Edit: Just read zzrs post. My first Saturn was a 92 SC, the second was a 97 SC. Never had to replace the clutch in either one. But I did put a lot of oil into them once they got above 120,000 miles or so.
When I was working as a clown, I worked a Sunday afternoon at a "Saturn party" at the local drive-in. Jesus. Like the Heaven's Gate folks but all about their damn cars. I don't know what they put in that Koolaid but every dad was wearing khakis and every child was in a button-down. It was unholy. They all wanted the Saturn logo painted on their faces, too. It was entirely too weird.
At that time I was a tree-hugging, planet-saving, angry young man who was accused on more than one occasion of being crunchy. Saturn sold hard to that demographic. In retrospect, I don't think burning 2 quarts of oil every 3,000 miles is good for the environment.
Exactly my experience with the oil, except more like a quart per 800-1000 miles. When I heard the valvetrain ticking I knew it was time to add a quart. I seriously stopped changing the oil because it burned it faster than I could change it. GM is the world's best at truck powertrains, but they had a lot of trouble with a 4-cylinder DOHC engine. I was a GM faithful because of my dad, but I learned my lesson and went Japanese. I'm curious, what year was your Vue? Saturn started buying V-6 engines from Honda in 2004.
First ride was a '63 Chevy truck. Here is a list of what it didn't have: Paint Power windows or locks Power steering or brakes A/C Heater/Defroster Un-cracked windshield Working windshield wipers Working gas gauge Doors that locked Here is what it did have: V8 Headers Loud exhaust 4 speed Posi So basically a perfect vehicle for a 16 y/o guy.
I got into cars late; as a teenager, my eyes would glaze over when my dad and brother were talking about that new Ford Probe or whatever. But then, I replaced my first car, an '81 Cutlass wagon, with something just a bit nicer: A 1988 Saab 9000 Turbo. Cue the spoken word into to "Jesus Built My Hotrod," I was suddenly in love with cars. But, two weeks into Saab ownership things went south: Not being a real car guy yet, it was an automatic, and the transmission went kablooey. My dad and I came to find that, unlike a Saab 900 automatic or the manual transmission for either, only a masochist would want to repair a 9000 auto so there was no written guide from Saab on how to do it. It was rebuild or replace. Oh, and the power assist to the brakes also went out at the same time. Thus began a saga of pouring money into this fucking Saab, a fair amount of mine and a lot more contributed by my dad. Eventually I ended up with a rebuild that worked for maybe a year and a half before crapping out. My dad eventually gave me his E30 ('86 BMW 325 5spd) for a trade-in on a Nissan Sentra, before we gave the Saab to my brother to use as a trade-in. Oh, and this is after I'd been driving said BMW a lot while the Saab was down. I got out of fake rich money pits for a while after that. A few days before 9/11, I bought a (not so) gently used 2000 Ford SVT Contour. What's that, you don't even remember the Contour, let alone a version from the same people who do the Cobra? 200 HP/169 lb-ft from a 2.5L V6, awesome handling, five speed manual. Good thing I took Carmax's extended warranty: I suspect the first owner (9K miles) was running a nitrous kit. Not that the warranty (Ford's at that point) helped me when the clutch exploded and showed clear signs of abuse, but I had it in for other issues over the next four years that culminated in the transmission grenading, on my 30th birthday in 2005. Yes, in an age when automatics are going over 200K miles my manual transmission died at 69K. Had it towed to Carmax, their inspector couldn't pin it on abuse (though it probably was, on the part of the first owner) and they outsourced it to a transmission shop, where I got to pay the cost difference between a rebuild and a new one. That, however, was the last problem I had with the car. I had it for just shy of three more years without a single issue, before trading it in for an '03 BMW 540 6spd. I said I got out of fake rich money pits for a while...