While driving my 2002 saturn vue to work, the reduced power and service engine lights came on simultaneously, and I had no power. I pulled over to the side of the road where a state trooper sat behind me with his lights on so that I would not be rear-ended. My car was towed to a local repair station where it could not be fixed, so it was towed to the saturn dealer. It was reported to me that the timing chain broke and since the engine was a "zero tolerance" engine, the entire engine has to be replaced at a cost of over $2000. I have an extended warranty, but do not have copies of the receipts for oil changes so they will not honor the warranty (for which I paid $1700). Heritage (the company which I bought the warranty from when I bought the car at saturn) says that if I pay $435 to have the engine torn down, they will send an auditor to determine if they will pay for the repairs or not. My concern is that the engine that they will put in has 28,000 miles on it and the timing chain may break on this engine as well.
2002 Saturn Vue engine complaints
Page 3 of 3: complaints 41 to 47 of 47, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Dt*: the contact stated the vehicle has timing chain failure which causes vehicle to stall. The check engine light illuminated and the dealer cannot find the cause of the illumination. The transmission also has problems as well as the brakes.
While driving 30 MPH vehicle lost power and stalled. Consumer pulled over, and had the vehicle towed. The dealership was notified, but did not resolve the problem. *ak
This vehicle has had this trouble since its puchase. After the first break down, saturn returned it to us stating that it was a loose battery terminal. The second time saturn stated that they replaced two of the three on board computers, they also stated that a full diagnostic and repair record would be fowarded to us. That never came. Yesteday 7/6/03 the engine shut off in traffic. I could not get it started and had to have it towed. I will not put my family back in this car again, I don't trust saturn, the company or the vehicle with my families lives.
I own a 2002 saturn vue and before I had it 1 month a sqeal was heard. The dealer replaced both fuel pumps. A few months ago the service engine light came on and it was a fule evap issue. It came on again 2 weeks ago and this time the fuel evap canister was replaced. I am concerned with safety of this vehicle because of the fuel issues. Also in mid december the clutch return spring snapped in half. The air conditioning lines leaked into the vehicle. I believe this car is a lemon!
When coming to a stop the vehicle chuggs (surges) and acts like it is going to stall. This problem has been looked at by the dealer and they basically say "all systems operating as intended". This situation is very similar to complaint number 567762.
On several occasions while driving, the reduced power light came on and vehicle would automatically shut down, after several attempts vehicle may restart, dealer stated that a sensor was not letting the pedal know that there was gasoline, dealer replaced this part, however this did not remedy problem.
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