more Saturn complaints (casting flaws cause cracked heads)

Yes, they could have at least covered the original owner for the full
amount and subsequent owners for a partial amount. Back when VW had 10
year warranties on engine and power train it transferred to subsequent
owners at only five years.

Because the S series was never profitable, and doing new versions of it
only for Saturn and no other divisions would have been hugely expensive.
No mass market, low cost vehicle can sell in quantities as small as
Saturn sold the S series and ever recoup the development and tooling
costs. The S series had fallen way behind the competition in areas such
as crash safety. They could have done a new version as a joint effort
with GM and still called it the SL, SC, SW, whatever, but there were too
many negative connotations to previous buyers that had experienced
reliability issues.

Well using the Corolla name anyway. The Corolla of today bears little
resemblance to the original Corolla.

Well Toyota doesn't sell the Corolla wagon anymore either. They want
people to buy SUVs. But I guess the Scion XB qualifies as a wagon, as
does the Matrix sort of.

 

We can debate why the S series was not more profitable, but I suspect that
it had more to do with management and marketing than engineering, or cost
effectiveness.

I have been very satisfied with the usability, utility, economy and
reliability of the SW1, I will not be replacing it with any SUV. The VW
Golf and Jetta look very good but the rising Euro will make them pricey. I
will buy what I want to buy and not just what a seller has or wishes to sell
me. Oil hit close to $120/barrel today and I suspect we will not see <$100
again, I am glad I do not need to sell (or buy fuel for) a Hummer or pickup
truck.

I am reminded of the difference between marketing and selling, marketing is
having what the customer wants and selling is attempting to do business with
what you have.

Saturn (and GM) no longer has what I want to buy, which is an economical,
small, light and fuel efficient mini-wagon.

Just my .02, YMand needsMV

 

Private wrote:
\

At one point Saturn claimed an "operating profit" which means that if
they ignored the several hundred million dollars in development and
start-up costs they were making a profit. Clearly they couldn't keep
doing this over and over again, since GM wouldn't pay for such nonsense.
It was always amusing to see people complaining that GM wasn't allowing
Saturn to do its own designs anymore, as if GM was supposed to pour cash
into the division forever with no hope of ever seeing a monetary return
on the investment.

One reason Toyota is so profitable is that they build massive numbers of
each design in multiple factories all over the world so they amortize
the development costs. These days if you can't sell a few million of
each design then you don't do the design. That's why GM decided that
Saturn would no longer do designs solely for Saturn.

 

It's not the steel causing the corrosion of the aluminum, it's the salt.
Specifically the chlorine in the salt.

 

I readily admit that I am not a corrosion engineer, but to my uneducated
experience this seems to be a classic case of galvanic corrosion,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_corrosion
occurring between two dissimilar metals (steel and aluminum) in the presence
of an electrolyte (road salt + water).
Since aluminum is lower than steel in the galvanic series,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_series
the aluminum will act as the anode and cause aluminum ions to migrate to the
steel which is acting as the cathode.

This galvanic corrosion is in addition to the normal corrosion that would be
experienced by the aluminum caused by exposure to the road salt + water
solution, (which may also have a galvanic component depending on any other
elements present in the solution).

I note that zinc (and cadmium) is lower than aluminum (and steel) in the
galvanic series so zinc plated galvanized bolts would seem to cause the
anode/cathode relationship to reverse, at least until the galvanic corrosion
of the zinc anode exposes the steel and reverses the anode/cathode to again
favor corrosion to occur in the aluminum, I suspect that this process gets
quite confused and contributes to accelerated corrosion of all the metals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanising

Just MHU, if I am misunderstanding this process, please enlighten me.

 

When aluminum and carbon steel are fastened together and gotten wet *without*
salt, it's the steel that corrodes, not the aluminum.

Salt will cause damn near anything to corrode.

 

You understand the process; what you're missing is that the steel bolts
aren't actually in contact with aluminum at all. Aluminum oxidizes so
rapidly when exposed to air that virtually all aluminum objects are
covered with a very thin layer of aluminum oxide. *That* is what the
steel bolts are in contact with. And aluminum oxide is a very stable
compound, not readily reactive at all. That's why under normal
circumstances, it will be the steel that corrodes and not the aluminum.

Adding salt changes everything: chlorine is even more corrosive than
oxygen, and free chloride ions will attack even aluminum oxide.

 

WRONG! The steel heads on the bolts on my car remained intact. The
hole in the aluminum shields rusted out to the point where they became
bigger than the bolt.

 

Post a photo.

 

Yep. I work for Saturn. I hate to see people lie about a great
company! Saturn makes great cars.I'de love to beat some sense into
misterfact (Mike Korman), but since I'm too stupid and lazy to refute
anything he says with facts; and I'm too cowardly to go over to his
house and re-arrange his brain-I decided to go to a lot of expence and
waste my precious time to find out who he is, where he lives and his
phone number-then plaster it all over the internet..

That way someone else might go over to his house and do the job for
me, or else call him up in the middle of the night.

I guess I could sue him for defaming the company, but that means
I'de have to face him in court and document all his lies, which again,
I don't know how to do or am to lazy to do. Then too, he'd get MY name
and address!

misterfactLIES

 

misterfactLIES...

.I work for Saturn. I hate to see people lie about a great company!
Saturn makes great cars.I'de love to beat some sense into misterfact
(Mike Korman), but since I'm too stupid and lazy to refute anything he
says with facts; and I'm too cowardly to go over to his house and re-
arrange his brain-I decided to go to a lot of expense and waste my
precious time to find out who he is, where he lives and his phone
number-then plaster it all over the internet..



That way someone else might go over to his house and do the job for
me, or else call him up in the middle of the night.



I guess I could sue him for defaming the company, but that means
I'de have to face him in court and document all his lies, which again,
I don't know how to do or am to lazy to do. Then too, he'd get my name
and address!


Yep.

 

Ug, I just wore out my scroll button. adding another one to my block list,
bye!