Engine Noise problems of the 2002 Saturn LS

My 2002 l200 has 92,000 miles. I was driving 70 mph on a crowded 5 lane interstate in the far left lane when my engine suddenly stopped. There were no strange noises or smells involved, nor was there any smoke. The rpm meter went down to zero. Thankfully, the electrical system worked fine and so did the brakes. I put on my hazard blinker and was somehow able to coast my way over to the shoulder. It is a miracle that no one hit me. The mechanic informed me that the timing chain had broken and that it had possibly also damaged the valves, so I would have to replace the engine. The cost to repair would be about $3500. That is about the same as the value of the car, so I had a difficult time deciding whether to do the repair or sell the car as is. The junkyard offered me $150 + free tow. I kept hearing from different mechanics that it is very rare for a timing chain to break. I did some further research looking for a replacement engine and was told they couldn't even keep the engine for this model in stock because the timing chain break happens so often. Then I found out that there was a recall on the 2001, but not 2002, even though the 2002 has the same design flaw. I could hardly believe it. At a minimum, I feel that Saturn should have notified me that this was a concern for my model of car, even if they didn't do a recall. Flying down the highway is the worst time to find out about such a defect. Had I known, I would have been able to have been proactive. Please extend the recall to avoid any future disasters.

Was on my way to work when the car started to make a noise and then just died. Had it towed to my local mechanic who diagnosed it as a broken timing chain. He had heard that this was a common problem with the l-series. Then I had it towed to our local Saturn dealership to have the work done; timing chain & guides, head, valves, pistons were only scored -- total bill of $3,700!! car is a 2002 with only 58,000 miles on it and this should not have happened. Dealership tried to say it was possibly due to "poor maintenance," but if they had looked at their records, they would have seen I had the car serviced only by them on a regular on-time basis! in fact it had been in for a service (oil change) only the week before. Let's face the timing chain was defective.