What were they thinking?

This car was designed by high school interns. Thats the only explaination I can come up with as to why its built like it is. No respectable design team would have come up with some of these dim bulb ideas.

Take the plastic body. No really, take it away. Held on by a few screws here and there it fits like size 12 shoes on size 8 feet. The trunk is just horrid (is that a word?). The car is just flimsy. No other way to describe it. In no time at all, the body panel started clicking, ticking, creaking, and tapping at highway speed. The steering knocks when turning slowly. The automatic dash light sensor started turning the dash light on just cloudy days. The handle on the passenger seatback lever broke off and so did the little pull handle on the rear set release in the trunk. The paint was soft and was easy to scratch.

Don't get me started about that weird electric assist steering. It's twitchy and numb. On the highway I'm afraid to sneeze in fear of winding up in the next lane.

Ah, but the Ecotec 4 banger is powerfull but buzzy but all of it's horsepower comes on at higher RPM. Car lacks torque at low RPM so don't expect any stoplight dragrace wins.

OK, gas mileage was average at around 23-25 highway. Brakes were cheap with only the fronts having disks.

Overall, this is a forgetable chapter in Saturn's odd, storied life. I miss the SL coupe series from the mid 90's They were nifty. The Ion however is a loser.