2009 Saturn Aura fuel system complaints

Filed Jul 2, 2013 · Fuel system, Transmission · 62,000 miles · NC

The car has seemed to miss shifts with the engines revving, a delay, and then a hard upshift for several years on an intermittent basis. The dealer it was purchased from couldn't find anything wrong with it. On june 25 and 26, it acted up more then usual and the transmission finally failed to provide any forward momentum after about 20 feet and 5 MPH even though the tachometer showed 5000rpm while pulling out into 55 MPH traffic on a 2 lane country road about noon on the 26th. This was very upsetting and is certainly a safety issue. I was able to get it to go by using the manual shift feature for a bit and then it settled down again. I took it to my local mechanic that very day and was advised I would need to go to the gm dealer as it was a problem with the computer programming in the transmission. When I contacted the dealer they said they were unaware of any issues like this. I found that hard to believe as similar issues have occurred in coworkers gm cars and are also reported on the internet in saturn and gm forums. They kept the car for 2 days, initially saying there was no problem, and then said there might be an update after all to the transmission software and installed it. I do not feel comfortable with this and again find myself somewhat incredulous that gm would be unaware of a problem that my small town mechanic was.