Automatic Transmission problems of the 2000 Saturn LS

My 2000 Saturn Ls1 completely shut down while driving, and never started again. It will cost $2500 for a used motor and installation, plus $175 for the tow and the diagnostics; and now I'm enduring significant transportation challenges without a vehicle.

I purchased a 2000 Saturn Ls 1 from carmax with 63,000 miles on it in September, 2007. Since February, 2008, I have spent more than $2,600 in repairs on the car; $1,600 was the timing chain which broke when the car only had 73,000 miles on it! I was told this was not a typical problem and that it was early for it to have broken. I see through my research that this is not untypical and is a frequent problem.

Transmission shifts hard into gears. Service light comes on, but no codes show up on scanner I have found many people with same problem over the internet.

I have had ongoing problems with this vehicle since I purchased it in 2003. I purchase this car in August 2003. In October 2003, the car would not start. It was discovered that the wrong type bolt was in the battery causing the car not to start. I purchased the bolt at the dealership had it installed. In October 2004, the car started shifting hard. I took it to the dealership and was told that it needed some type of valve and that would solve the problem. Again, the dealership installed this valve and everything was fine. November 2005, the blower for the heating and defogger only works when the car has sat out in the sun for a while. It does not work in the morning when the car is initially started in the mornings. Three days before christmas 2005, with only approximately 68,000 miles on this car, the timing belt broke. It did not damage the motor and I had it repaired at a cost of around $900. 00. This time I did not have the dealership do the repairs because it would have been very inconvenient and expensive for me to have the car towed the dealership from where it broke down. While looking through my owners manual, I noticed that it stated that my timing belt should last at least to 100,000 miles (my thirteen year old Nissan's timing belt lasted until 120,000 miles). When I addressed this with your customer care line, I was told that the 100,000 miles was just a suggestion and that the belt could actually go at any time. I guess maybe the word suggestion/suggested should have been put in the owners manual because that is not how I understood it when I read it as printed. January 2006, the car starts hard shifting again and again I took it to the dealership and was told that this time the transmission can't seem to figure out the speed of the car and it would cost an additional $80. 00 for them to track it down.

Over 3. 5 years that I have owned my 2000 Saturn lw2 wagon, there have been recurring problems with severe engine misfires and extremely rough shifting of automatic transmission, accompanied by "service" or "service engine soon" dashboard lights coming on. Two different Saturn dealers have repeatedly investigated and found "computer diagnostic codes" proving that "something" did happen, but repeatedly say that there is neither diagnosis of the root cause nor cure that can be applied, other than the band-aid of "resetting the computer" and telling me to go on my way, that will be fifty bucks please. In two cases this problem caused a complete breakdown requiring the car to be towed.

Car has a very noisy drive train took it to the dealer and they said was tires I changed tires and the noise is still there,the sound is like a grinding noise, it starts at 40 mph and increases as I go.

While driving on moderately hilly highway, the cruise control caused the engine to go to full throttle accompanied by a transmission downshift resulting in rapid and potentially dangerous acceleration. This has occurred three times. .

While driving engine check light came on ,vehicle will shift hard into gear, and jerk forward. Contacted dealler. Had vehicle serviced 3 times, however, problem still occurred. Dealership could not fix problem.