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Old 05-17-2022, 06:47 AM   #23
The_Bishop
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Hackettstown, NJ
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Haven't been doing much with the Camaro due to work on the house and getting my daughter's first car up to snuff.

Found an '02 Saturn SL1 with 52k miles on it. Clean car, was an older person's car that was garage kept until the owners prior to me. They bought it for their daughter's first car. They ended up selling it because it had a persistent check engine light for a cylinder 1 misfire they they couldn't get fixed and the car had a lot of 'vibration' when the engine was running. When I went to look at the car, brought a compression tester with me and can of brake clean. Compression test was good, and a quick shot of brake clean at the intake base showed a leak at the gasket on cylinder 1. Figured it was a leak of some kind as the car was idling at about 1100 RPM anyway, even warm. The engine vibration was a completely collapsed upper engine mount. Also noticed that the engine never really reached the 'right' spot on the temp gauge, and the scan tool showed it topping out in the 160's.

Ended up negotiating the price into a 'reasonable' range given the current used car market. Couple of bucks in parts (Intake gasket, upper motor mount, thermostat, all the appropriate fluids) and some bruised knuckles (with my daughter, she wanted to learn!) later, mechanically the car was sorted out. A quick (and more expensive than I would have liked) trip to the tire shop to replace the tires, two of which were original to the car going by date code, and the car was ready to drive.

Unfortunately the prior owner's daughter was not a very 'clean' person. Lots of spilled beverages in the seats and carpet, lots of food under the seats. Most of the khaki interior had a nasty black 'sheen' to it. Ended up taking apart a lot of the interior to clean it all out, shampooed the seats, etc. Got rid of the interior 'funk'. It cleaned up surprisingly well.

The exterior of the car is about what you'd expect for a 20 year old vehicle, with all the associated bumps and scrapes you might expect especially given the usage as a first car by a less then caring person, but there wasn't any reason I couldn't make it look better. So, out came the rotary polisher and the Meguiars to square away the paint, topped it off with some ceramic wax and now it looks about as good as it can.

With gas being so damned expensive, I've been using it a lot. It's got it's quirks (Manual everything except transmission, not even ABS) but it's a surprisingly competent car. Drives nice, it's comfortable, and the AC is nice and cold. Doesn't feel 'slow' even though it's a massive 1.9l of 99hp fury under the hood. I'm honestly going to miss using it once my daughter is done with her learner's permit and has her license.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I really wish Saturn as a company was still around. The manual for the car is actually useful with actual service procedures in it. It's really easy to work on. Transmission fluid changes are a breeze due to a drain plug and an external spin on filter, oil filter is in an accessible location. Nothing is 'buried' or hard to get to. Changing the intake manifold gasket wasn't that big of a deal even though it's on the back of the engine. It would be interesting to see what they would have done had they not been bought by GM and eventually killed off.
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1998 Z-28 - SLP lid - Ported TB - LS6 Intake - Dynatech SS headers/Catted Y - Magnaflow Exh - 3.42 - Yank SS3600 - UMI weld-in subframe connectors, Adj LCA, Adj PHB, Q1A TA - Bolt-in Relocation Brackets - Strano springs - Koni shocks - 17" C6Z06 wheels - 326HP/335ft-lbs - 12.35 @ 110.41

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackbirdws6 View Post
I can appreciate a dream but this person needed some real friends.

Last edited by The_Bishop; 05-17-2022 at 06:47 AM.
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