an excersize in styling and engineering and maybe even marketing that initially caught the attention of a lot of potential buyers. Sleek lines, hidden headlights, bottom breathers, in that the air to the radiator came in from under the bumper. The grill was false, a decorative block off blank. They ran well, were comfortable to drive and looked the part! I have always been satisfied with the performance of mine and actually enjoy the sport vs economy setting of the automatic transmission. At this point in time some 16 years later, where the car looks good due to an extensive repaint, runs well and has lost non of it's appeal and replacing it would cost some where in the vicinity of $25,000 in order to get the same features that I enjoy with this plus having to settle for something with more doors, replacing it has little appeal. Saturn as a company lost it's way, lost track of it's objectives apparently and lost it's capability of building cars to the point where new ones became rebadged versions of something else while the plant built Chevy Trucks. It makes or made no sense. Specially when I took it to get washed today after a short road trip and saw three young ladies admiring it who asked,
What Kind of a Car is This?
I enjoy my wheels, yes it is on it's second life now, it probably will not last to make a third but until that happens or I get suddenly afluent. I would not mind owning a new Caddy coupe when they come out in August, I think I will drive it awhile yet. I can get in it, go down the road and pop the Sun Roof, turn on the tunes and enjoy the ride. The only thing that no longer works is the odometer. I guess that means it has become ageless.

 

That's a somewhat sad, nice little article. I have a Saturn junkyard and I often wonder the stories the cars would tell...It's comforting to read an articulate post like this one at least occasionally. I remember the day when you could disconnect the speedometer and the car would still run properly. I'm surprised your Saturn runs ok with a non functioning speedometer-sorry, after rereading your post I realized that only the odometer has failed to function.

 

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I'm surprised your Saturn runs ok with a non functioning speedometer-sorry, after rereading your post I realized that only the odometer has failed to function.
SNIP
Hoseppi, thanks for the comment, it is appreciated. But on this year, there is a data link from a sensor in the transmission that sends a signal out to both the engine managment computor and the dashboard Speedometer and Trip Odometer modules. The engine management computor processes the data for important transmission, engine stuff. The modules in the dashboard independantly process the data to drive the Speedometer (seperatly) and the Odometer, main + trip. As close as I can tell with out disassembly the odometer function which is probably plastic thingys driving a diplay using some form of a stepper motor drive quit due to heat damage. (It gets hot here). I am not about to try to diss-assemble anything there due to heat damage of plastic fastening parts unless I have replacement stuff. I don't know whether this dashboard assembly was used for other models, that is one year specific, but if you happen to have the instrument cluster for a couple of different years (mine is a 94) and they appear to be the same and you let me know. I would be glad to cross check parts interchangability and buy one from you.
The history on this car was shortly after purchase it had an intermittent dash board fuse and it quit on a trip to L.A. leaving absolutly no dash board display at all on anything because the entire dash is digital encoded with linear appearing displays. Of course the car was newer at the time and dealers were more inclined to bend over backwards and an L.A. dealer went out of his way to fix the thing so it could be driven back with out having to guess if it was running hot or how fast you were going.
As long as sensors are functioning, the engine control computor will run stuff if the dash board quits. Pretty dang good engineering for something that ended up not succeeding!

 

I would imagine it would have to be '94 and older? I have mostly newer ('96 and up) in inventory. If you think a newer cluster has some potential, let me know as I have plenty of them. I don't think I have ever seen a digital dash on an S series Saturn. Howie

 

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I don't think I have ever seen a digital dash on an S series Saturn. Howie
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I am not referring to the display as being "digital", the display appears to be analog, that is needles point at numbers. But the display(s) are driven digitally as is from the computer. Digitally in this case being multiple pulses, ones and zeros in the case of the speedometer and odometer there is a pulse generator in the transmission that feeds pulses to the engine control computer so it can determine speed for engine and transmission algorithms to run the car. The same line or wire feeds the same pulse to the speedometer speed pulse-decoder and the odometer distance pulse decoder and they in turn convert the pulses to a analog display. There is no speedometer cable in the car, no mechanical drive. All electronic.
I've not seen, or frankly better said haven't seen the dash board of a Saturn other than my own for quite a few years now and could not tell you what others look like. But if they look similar, or maybe even with in a few years span, the same pulse decoder parts are probably used to run the gauges, as I believe they are integral to the gauge, so maybe even the same gauge. I guess I will start trying to look at some of the early ones to see if I can recognize anything.

 

Ok, now I can relate. Do you remember when the S10 pick ups had the digital display dash('89-'94)? They were a real nightmare. Well, anyway, Saturn changed the dash in '95, but I never really checked the guts to see if anything was interchangeable with the earlier models. I have to go to the local u-pull-it places this week anyway so I will check one of the earlier models to see if they are even remotely similar. I just bought a '99 SL1 with a 5spd (my favorite combination) on Thursday and it didn't have power steering. Talk about a flashback to the past...

 

I didn't have an S10, but I did have a new 87 Lincoln with a full digital dash. At 60,000 miles you could not read the dash in the dead of night. It was a $2000 warentee repair bill to fix the dang thing. It was shortly after that I took an $8000 out of pocket loss to get rid of it. I was years recovering. It was worth it, not one of Fords better idea's. Here in the valley of the Sun the heat and UV is brutal. Anything plastic takes a beating. Don't know where you are but if an instrument cluster is available for a 94 that does not look torn up if you want to gamble grab it because I can not find things here that are not damaged beyond use.
I would not object to being able to have a replacement that I don't have to worry about turning into plastic shrapnel. And I do not think it is that hard to pull one (I hope anyway)

 

Ok, if I find a decent one I'll pull it and we'll see what happens. I really have no way of testing it thoroughly.

 

Junk yard electrical parts are a gamble, 16 year old sophisticated electrical parts are a bigger gamble, those mounted in plastic are even bigger yet. As long as the price is reasonable and the appearance looks half way decent, it's worth taking for me. Thanks.
The whole intrument cluster is a better gamble for me because of potential damage in dissassembly here. Not the dash board, just the instrument cluster. Looking at the removal instructions, it does not appear too hard. But then again, been there done that befor too.