Gasoline Engine problems of the 2001 Saturn LS

2001 Saturn l200. 59,000 miles. Timing chain failure. Youngest daughter was driving car and she lost power. Thankfully, she was able to get the car to the shoulder of the road and call for help. No one was hurt. I read that this was a very common problem with this engine. I collect cars and this is the first one that I have ever had a timing chain go out on without serious revving, and release of the engine rpms!!.

While at a stop sign, my 2001 Saturn l200 with out any warning died. Fortunately I was not traveling on the express way. I had car towed to repair shop and was told the timing chain broke. They advised me to call my Saturn dealer because a well maintained auto with only 40,000 miles should not have this problem. I called the dealer and I'm still waiting for them to call me back.

With no advanced warning signs, my 2001 Saturn l-200 had the timing chain spontanteously break. All oil changes and maintenance was done at the regular intervals. Because Saturn designed this as an interferance engine, the broken timing chain caused permanent damage to the valves in the motor. No one was hurt as a result of this engine malfunction. The failure was corrected by replacing the blown engine with a low mileage salvage engine at the cost of $2606 to me. I am the original owner and my vehicle only has 69,000 miles.

No events leading up to this failure. I own a 2001 Saturn l200 sedan. Up until now this has been a good vehicle. The car just turned over 70k miles and the timing chain just broke. This leaves me with a car that I am making a payment on, yet unable to drive. It is not in my family budget to have this repaired by a professional, that means I will have to do the work myself unless Saturn decides to help me. I have been doing a lot of research into this issue and see that there has been a service bulletin issued for this problem, but no recall yet.

I have a 2001 Saturn l-series passenger vehicle with a 2. 2 4-cylinder engine. The engine has 69k miles and the timing chain broke causing severe engine trouble (bent valves), with an estimated cost of $2400. If there is damage to any of the pistons then the cost will increase significantly. The mechanic that I take my vehicle to used to teach auto mechanics at the local high school until they eliminated the program. As my mechanic was explaining the problem to me he tells me that one of his former students now works as a mechanic for Saturn. My mechanic had trouble diagnosing the problem and so he called his former student who informed him that it could possibly be a broken timing chain. He goes on to tell me that the timing chain is oiled by spraying oil on to the chain through an orifice that is not much bigger than a pin hole. This tiny hole where the oil sprays from is at the end of a plastic piece about a half inch long. If something should block this hole the chain becomes dry and eventually breaks. It is my opinion that their original design had a fatal design flaw, which Saturn came to recognize, I can only assume due to numerous problems with the timing chain breaking, probably while the vehicles were under warranty, forcing them to come up with the redesign. I believe this could be a serious safety issue as well for anyone who drives a Saturn with the original oilier. It is a disaster waiting to happen. Should someone be driving on a freeway and have their timing chain break for it would be like someone putting on the brakes but without the signal thus placing them as well as anyone behind them in a dangerous situation. I sent the full story to your webmaster. You need to allow more space.