How breaking an $8 part costs $1500... and then some!

Ah...so here we are, the story of the Saturn.

The official "Daily Driver / car that goes and picks up car parts for the racecar" of TF American Racing had a little issue last October. The 2005 L300 Saturn is a slick looking 4 door sedan with at that time 128,000 miles. Driving home from work, the engine started making some bad noises near home.

A little history, my neighbor, at the time, Tim had let me know he just replaced valves on another Saturn with 120,000 miles, just like mine (same V6, 3.0L engine) because the timing belt broke...ah nice, inference motor. So we caught it just in time. The timing belt was replaced in September at 126,000 miles. It was time.

Then on the above mentioned date, the bolt to the timing belt idler pulley broke… loosing the timing belt, that eventually shredded. The pulley broke the plastic cover covering all the pulleys and naturally smashing valves. The bolt had spun out and then broke…not sure if we didn’t tighten the bolt when we replaced the timing belt…or the new belt created strain. Greatfully, I had driven to Cedar Point a month early after replacing the belt...blessed it didn't break then.

So Tim offered to help do the same job on mine he did on the previous one. We went to work. The parts came from 5 different sources ($12 a piece for the valves from dinosaurparts.com…better than $171 from the dealer). The broken bolt…yep, $8 from the dealer. Probably close to $1100 in parts. Why the $1500 then...driving a 2 ton, 11 mpg, $4 a gallon, van in place of the 25mpg Saturn over a few months...I am being generous.

The repair took time. The broken bolt was the toughest part. It had to come out of the block and it was right in line with the front frame beam. I tried spinning it with a screw driver and welding on it…both unsuccessful. Dave, came over and had the right tools for the job. A little drill here and a tap and spin there…all good!

Between October and June…yes June the car was finally finished. Tim went back to work, as he was unemployed when he started the job, and between work, winter, the broken bolt in the block, the holidays, planning the wedding, having the wedding and the honeymoon, I didn’t get much time to it.

So this is where the story usually ends….but it doesn’t

About 100 miles after the repair…the car started running on 5 cylinders…well at least that is how it started acting. All the lights would come on in the dash and the car did not like idle. The farther it drove the worse the electronics tried to compensate for the issue. Off to the dealership…they stated it was a loss of compression in cylinder #1. Off to Jefferson Motor Service and speedy racer Jim Lamb, owner/operator. Well the car did have a compression issues, but not enough to do what it was doing. Jim still to this day doesn’t know what is wrong with it. He would try to fix one thing and something else would act up…ah yes the issues. So, Jim being the nice guy he is offered a trade. Ta-Da, 2000 SL Saturn 4cyl with 134K, new tires and new transmission…and most importantly…running.

One day Jim will get to that motor and fine out what is wrong with it…until then…

God Bless, be safe …and make sure you get those bolts tight on the engine!