Model Year Scorecard · NHTSA + EPA data

Saturn model years compared

Every Saturn model in the catalogue (1991–2010), with owner complaints, recall campaigns, urgent advisories and fatal-crash involvement summed across all model years. Open a model to see its years side by side and the best and worst year called out.

13,207
Owner complaints
filed with NHTSA, most on the Ion
83
Recall campaigns
distinct NHTSA campaigns, most on the SL
0
Urgent advisories
do-not-drive & park-outside campaigns
956
Fatal-crash vehicles
FARS census, 2020 onward, exact

Saturn models ranked by complaints

Saturn models ranked by NHTSA owner complaints across all model years
Model Years Complaints Recalls Urgent Fatal (FARS) MPG
Ion 2003–2007 (5)
4,343
10 237 24.9
Vue 2002–2010 (9)
2,351
7 304 20.1
SL 1991–2002 (12)
2,219
15 14 27.2
Aura 2007–2009 (3)
1,439
5 108 20.3
Outlook 2007–2010 (4)
1,352
10 37 19
Sky 2007–2010 (4)
516
5 10 21.5
SC1 1993–2002 (10)
413
8 15
Astra 2008–2009 (2)
164
1 9 27
L200 2001–2003 (3)
138
4 18 24
L300 2001–2005 (5)
128
2 19 20.9
Relay 2005–2007 (3)
122
3 4 18.7
LW200 2001–2003 (3)
21
1 24
LW300 2001–2003 (3)
1
3 20.7
L100 catalogue only 2001–2002 (2)
25
SC2 catalogue only 1993–2002 (10)
27
SL1 catalogue only 1991–2002 (12)
69
SL2 catalogue only 1991–2002 (12)
75
SW2 catalogue only 1993–2001 (9)
6

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Every Saturn model opens to every model year compared side by side, with the best and worst year called out. Free account, no card, takes a minute.

Sources. Owner complaints, recall campaigns and advisories are from the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation datasets; fatal-crash vehicles from FARS; fuel economy from the EPA. VehDB sums them per model; the figures are not VehDB's own findings.

How to read it. Complaints and recalls are summed over every catalogue year of the model, so long-running best-sellers rank high on volume alone; the model page ranks each year against other vehicles of the same model year, which is the fairer read. Urgent counts do-not-drive and park-outside campaigns. Fatal (FARS) is a census of vehicles in fatal crashes from 2020 onward, exact, and is never mixed with CRSS estimates. MPG is the EPA combined average across the model's trims. Sources are U.S. public domain; nothing here is a verified defect finding.