Water Pump problems of the 2000 Saturn LS

I was driving home from work with the cruise on. I thought the car did something funny, maybe it slowed down so I looked down at my speedometer. The check engine light was flashing, I tapped my brakes. Then more lights started flashing and the car was just slowing down. I thought I should start pulling over to stop so I tapped my brakes and it sounded like something flew off my car. I slowly coasted to a stop. I put the car into park and it wasn't running. I turned off the car and lights and called my husband. It was really scary to have the car just stop on you while you were driving and it wouldn't have been good if people were around. My husband came to see if he could get the car running and when he turned the key it just sounded like metal scraping on metal. It was a horrible noise I have never heard before. We towed the car in the middle of the night to the closest town and in the morning found out they did not fix Saturns. Another place in town, when our car broke down 2 months ago, could not even figure out what was wrong with it and recommended we bring it to a Saturn dealer (no one closer than 250 miles). We hauled our car to a different mechanic who had worked on it in 2005 when the water pump broke while we were driving it. He has stated that the timing belt broke. It will be at least $1500 and that's if it didn't wreck the engine. We aren't sure if we are going to fix it because we are still paying on the car itself. And we just put about $1200 into it in September. We get the oil changed every month because of the miles we drive and we take very good care of the car. This is very frustrating and I have read online that this has happened to many other people owning a 2000 Saturn l series car. I hope that someone will do something about this and fix it! if it is a manufacturing problem then we shouldn't have to pay for it.

I was driving to work at approx. 35 mph. I own a Saturn 2000 Ls with a 3. 0 v6 with 56,413 mi. My ses light & battery lght came on while I was driving - almost at the same time my car died. My car would not start. All my gages were normal prior to the car dying. I had to have the car towed. It was towed to pep boys they told me that the timing slipped and that the serpentine belt was melted. They told me take it to a Saturn dealership in order to fix it. They also informed me that this was the 3rd Saturn Ls2 in the shop this week with the same problem. The car was towed to Saturn of orchard park. Saturn had the car from 06/28/05 until I picked it up on 7/06/05. The tech told me that he found that the water pump had leaked onto the timing belt - the timing belt slipped causing the car to jump timing - this caused the sepentine belt to snap and it melted into the pulleys. I told him that there was no indication to me that anything was wrong with the water pump. There was no leaking of fluid on the driveway of my home. The engine temp. Gauge was normal. I just had the oil changed and the transmission checked. In the end the tech replaced the water pump (this is the second water pump for this vehicle - the first one was replaced when the car had 19,958 miles in 2001). All pulley grooves were ground out. The tensioner pulley and belts were replaced. Engine still would not start. All the intake and some exhaust valves were damaged. Both head cylinder banks were replaced the cam and timing were set. The car was road tested. $ 4,313. 05 later - I have my car back. I could have been in a serious rear end collision. Saturn is well aware of the problems with this engine. There is no guarantee that the same thing will not happen again. I have contacted Saturn customer service - they offer no assistance. I believe that there is a serious design flaw with this engine. I would like to see this investigated.