2003 Saturn Vue AWD V6 - MotorWeek Retro

"A Different Point of VUE"
‎@RetroCarReviews
RETRO CAR REVIEW'S & ROAD TEST'S

[@fl6934]

One of the best cars I ever owned!!!!!

[@fernandorocha-dx1wv]

Very nice this car

[@delmarpasirens]

they're great cars, i've owned one for 17 years and have no plan of selling. it's my favorite car.

[@davidf2477]

My sister owned one of these. It was by a long measure the loudest car I've ever been in. At highway speeds you had to turn the radio all the way up to hear it over the wind and road noise. On the plus side, I couldn't hear a word my sister said...

[@scottbuchele4814]

I still have my 2000 LS1. Such a nice car to drive.

[@drchillish]

These never got much love but for the money they make great winter beaters as long as you avoid the cvt. Bought an 02 for $1800 with the 3.0/awd combo, put on some junkyard snow tires and drove that for the next 6 winters. The best part is they never rust (on the outside lol)

[@zzoinks]

6 years out of a sub $2000 car is pretty impressive!

[@iFixJunk]

But they sure do rust out underneath!!!

[@GMgame20]

My dad has a 2007 Saturn vue V6 engine. I love it. He still has it.

[@RyanEmeryLovesCars]

My uncle used to have one of these but in silver. The cloth rear seats were as hard as a rock and made even short commutes uncomfortable.

[@LaytonKnightt]

A friend of mine had a red Vue manual. He got rid of it seven years ago and bought a same model year Corolla, because it was better on gas. The thing I never understood was that the “Vue” slot on the dashboard isn’t for a cassette tape, even though it looks like it. It’s literally just….text…

[@BabyBugBug]

I miss Saturn. Was the only car brand owned by GM that I ever would have bought.

[@fernandorocha8459]

These Saturn VUE is nice SUV

[@zlatonicbuzz]

Saturn ended and gmc came to life, the vue reminds me of the gmc terrain

[@adamn7516]

Its ironic that just a few years later Saturn swapped the GM made V6 for a Honda V6. That was the beginning of the end of what the Saturn brand was supposed to stand for. Clearly GM felt their own V6 wasn't good enough to power their car so they went to one of their main japanese competitors for a powertrain. 🙄 That being said if I could find a clean Honda powered Vue V6 I'd jump on it. Best of both worlds. Dent and rust free body and a world class powertrain.

[@patrickwatrin5093]

My friend you Sir are correct.

[@isaac24]

The Honda V6 Vues are still all over the road. We have 2. An 04 AWD and an 06 FWD. 230k on the 06, 320k on the 04. The 06 is still in pretty good shape, the 04 is good cosmetically but the subframe is rusting very badly (we live in Michigan) and has been welded several times. The only reason we still have it is because my cousin drives it and loves it so much he refuses to get rid of it, lol.

[@liammaupin9492]

@@patrickwatrin5093the engine was part of a trade agreement between Honda and General Motors Honda took Isuzu Rodeos which became the Honda passport and GM took Honda J30 V6’s and their accompanying automatic transmission

[@Flowmusic]

Only $ 17,000, SUVs now are triple that price. So crazy

[@nathangreer8219]

4:48 Huh.. didn't know Shia LaBeouf was their test driver??

[@GM.33.]

Отличный автомобиль, 👍👍👍

[@briantorres7339]

The 5 speed automatic in 2003-04 models were actually Toyota Aisin transmissions, not GM units. 05-07 5AT were Honda units. The 03-05 Saturn ion sedan also used a Toyota Aisin 5AT. The horrible CVT’s were built by VM Motari, which GM partly owned at the time, FIAT also having a share in it. I had a Saturn Ion with the 5AT and on the casing, it said built by Aisin for GM. Made in Japan. Solid units. Sadly those 3.0L Opel V-6 were not the most durable, had to change the timing belts around 60k miles, or risk the engine failing. Gritty sounding too. The Honda 3.5L was a much better engine, but unfortunately those Honda 5 speed automatics tended to be somewhat weak, but not as bad as the GM built 6AT’s in the 2nd Gen Vue, those were garbage like the CVT’s. However, these were GM’s first true unibody CUV’s based on a car platform. (GM Theta Platform).

[@ding9633]

You almost got your facts right here

[@iFixJunk]

That last part where they gave prices showed a sticker that gave the price he stated for the V6, 5-speed automatic, but the sticker showed a CVT... It wasn't a great car...it was barely even OK. I had one. And the brand didn't know where it was headed, unfortunately, since the '04 got Honda engine options, which was a weird marriage. (Fast-forward to 2012 and it's like Honda decided to use this VUE as its basis for that generation CR-V. Don't believe me? Compare the two side-by-side, if you get the chance. I had an '03 VUE at the same time we had my wife's '14 CR-V. It was like Honda said, "We can build that car.") My final thoughts on this vehicle, after owning a 2003 V6 AWD, 5-speed automatic: I believe what killed this car, and probably Saturn, was a high cost of ownership after getting lured in by a low sticker price. Imagine you're a single mom (which is what I always believed was their biggest market), probably a hairdresser or a waitress, and you buy a Saturn because you can afford a NEW CAR if you just buy a SATURN. And, not only can you afford a Saturn NEW, but you can afford to load it up! Then the hundred-thousand-mile service comes and there are a TON OF THINGS that you're supposed to pay through the nose for! You decide to trade it in instead, and THIS TIME, you're not getting ANOTHER Saturn!

[@matthewbowen5841]

Well, if it's good enough for Shia LeBeauf...

[@Outback69]

WTF this is a 03 Car?? Where is GM at today? This is way ahead of this time!

[@josephjosephbaska6655]

Saturn was GM replacement for geo so therefore to my way of thinking the view is the final Geo tracker suv

[@landonbenford8369]

GM was trying REAL Hard to get a significant piece of the small car market. Like 10 years before the suv craze.

[@fv7765]

3.0 v6 output of 181bhp? Must have restricted for emission?

[@matthewbowen5841]

170-190 was the output of that old Euro V6. It was used in this, the Vectra/L Series, Saabs, the Omega/Catera, and probably some other stuff in 2.5 and 3.0 displacements. It also had some pretty well known issues. 2 years in, Saturn started buying Honda J35s from the Pilot and Odyssey for use in the Vue. Now, Honda's larger EV future will be GM-designed stuff built in the Saturn Spring Hill plant. Serendipity...

[@laron1573]

Umm they used the vue/Outlook to user in the Traverse and equinox

[@Jag-leaper]

Anyone know what the reliability of the cvt was in these?

[@jacobyo99]

Horrific

[@Jag-leaper]

@@jacobyo99 yeah I figured as much

[@jas4925]

Bad. My uncle knows a used car guy who obtained one at an auction years ago. The trans was out. Parts weren't available. He fixed the transmission using a gear from an RC car and said everything was just too small. And quickly resold it 😀.

[@Jag-leaper]

@@jas4925 wow that's crazy

[@raulsebastiani6591]

Tranny was Beyond shit

[@mexicanguy2323]

2004 doesn’t have 3.5?

[@Cruzinator4500]

It does

[@realgone222]

Bought an SL1 in 1998, was the worst new car I had ever owned.

[@zzoinks]

Why?

[@realgone222]

Low quality interior, poor handling, meek and noisy engine.

[@zzoinks]

@@realgone222 makes sense. Some people love their Saturns for reliability but it sounds like they'd have to excuse the downsides.

[@Jswag2929]

Abs not standard nope

[@HenrySchecker]

They keep comparing it to the crv. Its a pilot/explorer competitor

[@brittoncoil2518]

No. It was a crv competitor…

[@williamegler8771]

How? Neither the Pilot or Explorer had a 4cyl.base engine. It was smaller and was priced to compete with the RAV4 and CRV.

[@HenrySchecker]

ITS THE SAME WHEELBASE AS AN EXPLORER WHAT DO YOU MEEEEEEEEEANNNNN@@williamegler8771

[@ak1ranger]

More hot garbage from Saturn. There is a reason you don't see these on the road anymore, because they wee junk from the beginning.

[@JeffStoess]

I see them on a daily basis. Mostly the 4 cylinder manuals and the V6 Honda models.

[@hakeemsd70m]

I see these vintage VUE's all over the Midwest to this very day. They were very popular here when new and are pretty much impossible to kill. In September 2022, I met the owner of a 2004 VUE Redline and he said he had 330K miles on her.

[@Setzer777]

🤡

[@T-Rex-nm1se]

What do you mean? I still see plenty of Vues every day in the area I live in