Hello 2021…Time to upgrade the car…

The year has started out pretty well…because I found a new to me car!

I’d set up the Carfax online ‘Shop for a new car’  automatic system months ago. They have this automated system that will send you an email if the car you’re looking for pops up in their system, from dealers only… I’ve also tried watching local towns FB selling pages (more popular than Craigslist now) wherever I’ve parked the RV. And for a few days to months I’m in a certain area, I’ll check to see if the car(s) I’m interested in show up. Over the past year that I’ve been seriously watching, I’ve not found what I want. One time came close, and it was nice, low mileage, but too old. Other times the car was in the rust belt and too far away.

And what I want(ed) is as follows:

1. Automatic transmission
2. Sedan
3. Halfway decent paint and body w/o rust
4. Cruise Control
5. Power windows
6. Power door locks
7. Power mirrors if possible
8. Weight under ~4,000 lbs
9. Lay down rear seats between the trunk and cabin for my golf clubs and other long stuff
10. Near my current location wherever that happened to be at the time
11. Low Mileage
12.  TOWABLE without having to spend thousands. Not all AT cars are.

I was looking for Toyota, Nissan, Ford, Saturn, etc. but usually I’d just narrow the search to one brand, model, and a range of years. And over the months, Carfax sent me many leads but only a couple were close enough to me or in an area of the country where I didn’t have to worry about a rusted out undercarriage to bother pursuing. I’d have to ask the dealer to take pictures of the undercarriage as I searched for rust. Some were listed way over the highest Blue Book value because of low mileage so out they went. Some were in Florida and a bunch surprisingly were up in the NE. Too far to go to pick it up and too expensive to have them drive it out at $1/mile. When I was up in Milton Freewater, I did see one up in Washington State that looked good and was close, but they sold it so quickly I didn’t get the chance to go look at it. Wrong color anyway.

Anyway, I got down here to Pahrump late Dec. ’20 and 3 weeks later, one pops up on Carfax in Oceanside, CA as a price reduction. Just a 4.5 hour trip from here, and my brother lives over that way so I could visit him, possibly. I’d seen it before on Carfax but I was up in Milton Freewater at the time so too far away, and it was too expensive that time. Now with the price reduction and the fact I’m in Pahrump and it fits my list, yeah, I want it.

I didn’t want to go over with a trade-in as my current Saturn has the tow plate and wiring already installed and I felt I could get better money selling it myself here in Pahrump what with the 22 RV parks that are here in town. Could be a few people looking for a low cost towable with only 78,000 miles on it. So that meant I’d have to have a 2nd driver to bring my car back here. Tried, but couldn’t find a co-driver here in Pahrump, and it was short notice so wasn’t able to find anyone to watch my cat for me either. So contacted my brother over in Rosamond and he’ll be happy to help.

I know how fast these things sell if they have low mileage and the one listed by Carfax at a dealer’s is a ’03 and only has 66,000 miles. Whoa! Almost brand new. It’s a Saturn, L200 so has nearly all the power gear I’m looking for. And Saturn cars are always easily towable even with the AT. Missing the heated seats and heated mirrors but everything else on my list is there. The dealer had had it since September and had recently lowered the price from $4999 down to $4100. I perused the pictures over and over, contacted the dealer the same day it had shown up in my email and got them to post some pics of the engine, those looked good so then put $300 down on it (lowest they’d go to hold it).

Now that I had a plan, what I did was drive 4.5 hours to my brothers place in Rosamond with the cat, cat supplies, and litter box in the car.  She howled the first 2 hours of the trip but eventually settled down.

And here’s a few pics of the trip over to Rosamond…

Above picture was as I passed Barstow, CA.

Spent the night there in Rosamond. Next day, brother and I drove 2.5 hours south via I-5 to Oceanside, inspected and test drove the car, made the deal where I got a full tank of gas (couldn’t get the price down any lower, and not from lack of trying), but didn’t have to pay any CA tax, or pay to transfer the title like a lot of dealers insist on, though it’s not required. So I paid exactly $4100 total and got more than 3/4 tank of gas free, a $35 value! Smirk.

When I inspected it, I checked everything I know to check, oil: engine, tranni, brake – rubbed a little between my fingers, smelled it. Grabbing the tops of the tires, pushed and pulled listening for any noises or creaks and groans – shouldn’t be any and there weren’t. Checked the engine compartment of course – everything looked clean, nothing disconnected or broken, battery looks new. Laid down on the ground and inspected underneath for any oil spots on the undercarriage – none found, and no wet spots underneath on the ground where the car had sat for 2 weeks. Road tested city and freeway – found the steering a bit mushy, with some excessive vibration – more on this later. Brakes worked great. Brother came along on that first test drive as he hears better than I do and he didn’t hear anything bad. Drives nice, feels comfortable to drive. Everything I tired worked! Even the cruise control. Freeway speeds smooth and powerful, passes others easily.

So after paying cash using my Debit Card, off I drove back to Rosamond with my brother following in my old Saturn. Went out for Thai food that night, and watched the news about the aftermath of the treasonous actions of tRUMP and his supporters at the nations capital.

Got up the next day, drove downtown Rosamond to have the tires filled to 37 PSI at a local tire store, got a gas fill up, transferred a bunch of junk from the old Saturn to the new one, and headed back home to Pahrump. With the cat of course. This time she spent nearly the entire trip on the floor between my legs and didn’t yowl near as much.

And here it was…this was in Dan’s driveway.

Once I got the car on the relatively fine roads between Rosamond and Pahrump, plus having had the tire pressures adjusted that morning, the wobble and most of the vibration were gone. Getting on better roads really helped.

I’m familiar with the vibration though, as I went through that with my other Saturn. What happened was that I wasn’t paying attention one time and ran straight into a curb at 3-5 MPH. That damaged the tires internally. Over time the vibration got worse and worse until I couldn’t go over 65 MPH. There was nothing external on the tire that looked like they were bad. New tires fixed it, and I could immediately go 80 MPH with no vibration. And I think that’s what’s going on here. The previous owner had hit a curb or something which damaged one or both of the front tires so the car vibrates at speeds over around 60 MPH. The vibration now seems to occur only during a curve at freeway speeds, and usually stops after a few miles on a nice smooth freeway. Poor road condition exacerbates the problem. The tires don’t have much tread left anyway so I think I’ll buy new as soon as I get back up to Oregon. Pretty confident, based on experience, that the car is fine, it’s just the tires need replacing.

So tires are an issue, and I’ve since found that the comfort controls are a problem. It’s pretty difficult to set the cabin temp at a certain value and have it stay there. Wants to wander all over the place. Could be I don’t know how to use it right though. Everything else is great and I am very pleased to have all those power devices now. Windows, locks, mirrors, seat settings. And the big one, the one I missed having the most on the Saturn SL1, CRUISE CONTROL. Damn I missed that over the last few years. Nice to have it back.

And then a few pictures as I returned to Pahrump driving my new Saturn…this first one is probably a jet contrail. Edwards AFB is nearby.

There’s a tiny town where I turn off of I-15 for a more direct route to Pahrump, and I spotted this…

And a few miles later, starting to look like a storm was heading our way in Pahrump. And later that evening, the wind picked up but we didn’t get any rain.

Here it is back in Pahrump after a comfortable 4.5 hour drive. 

The cat had shed like crazy while in the car…anxiety maybe? So I had to vacuum it out and use a lint remover to pick it off the car seat fabric soon after I got home. Cat hair seemed to be everywhere.

All the driving just to buy the car will eventually come to around 24 hours on the road. My brother will drive the old Saturn back here this week sometime, then I’m to drive him back home and drop him off, than return. Likely will spend the night but I’ll leave the cat home this time and let the front gate know.

So I’m really pleased with the purchase so far. It doesn’t seem to have any of the typical issues the ’01 had, in fact the Saturn Fans forum doesn’t really have a list of issues like the SL1 had. I had to fix sooooo much stuff on that one but once done, it’s a very reliable car. Haven’t needed to do a thing to it other than maintenance since I fixed the last of the problems over a year ago. And most of the fixes wouldn’t stop the car from driving and were very easy to do so it would be months before I’d get around to them. This car is supposed to be reliable right from the factory without having to fix a bunch of stuff right off. Fingers crossed.

That’s it for now. I’m enjoying the bright sunshine here in Nye county Nevada and expect to be here until late March. Thanks for reading!