Three problems related to engine failure have been reported for the 2002 Saturn LS. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
The contact owns a 2002 Saturn l200. While driving approximately 20 mph on normal road conditions; the engine stalled without warning. The engine failed to restart after several attempts. Roadside assistance towed the vehicle to an authorized dealer for diagnostic testing. The technician stated that the failure was contributed to to a broken timing chain. The vehicle was repaired for the malfunction at an estimated cost of $3800. 00. The contact had concerns of the safety risk involved. The failure mileage was 130,000. The current mileage was 131,000. Updated 12/7/09 updated 12/08/09.
2002 Saturn l 200 had complete engine failure while on route 197 and car stopped in middle of road and wouldn't restart. Car has about 60k miles on it. Fortunately my daughter was able to get the car off the road. Problem was found to be timing chain failure with destruction of the engine. Saturn reviewed our maintenance record, deemed it "excellent" and said it would cost me only $3500 to get a rebuilt engine put in. They refused to acknowledge any problem with timing chain. I am reluctantly going forward with repair because I can't afford a new car now, but I think this problem could lead to more serious consequences for other drivers and timing chain problem in all l200 should prompt recall.
I was driving my 2002 Saturn l200 home from boston on 3-12-06 approx. 6:00 pm when the engine stopped. I had the vehicle towed home and contacted Saturn. After they examined the vehicle, they came up with the diagnosis of a failed timing chain and engine failure. I asked the technician if this was a common problem and I was told that it wasn't. I googled common problems for the Saturn l200 and broken timing chains are very common with many Saturns. Gmac even went as far as to issue tech. Bulletins about timing chain issues. Gmac knows about the high failure rate of these timing chains and has not taken appropriate measures to rectify the situation and are trying to pass the cost of repairing this defect on to their consumers.