Except for the Vue things arent so hot in Saturn-land and this cant be good news considering the Ions are only a year old. From what I hear the ion quad-coupes are doing alright but the ion sedans arent selling too hot.



http://www.freep.com/money/autonews/gm22_20031022.htm


"When you see like a 140-day supply of a vehicle that tells you it's suffering in the marketplace, which is really bad news considering they only launched the Ion in the last year," said Mike Wall, analyst for CSM Worldwide, an auto sales and production firm. "When you hit triple digits, you get concerned about the vehicle. I'm sure heavier incentives or downtime are coming."

Wall said the Ion is losing customers to other small-car offerings like the Dodge Neon, or lower-priced cars from Korean automakers Hyundai and Kia.

Sales of the Ion fell dramatically in September, with just 7,279 sold. That was a 35-percent drop from August, when 11,146 were sold, and a 50-percent drop from sales of 14,488 in July.

Neon sales, by comparison, rose 9 percent from August to September.

Not all is lost at the Saturn division.

The VUE continues to sell well. Sales of the VUE were up 12.9 percent in September compared to a year ago. For the year, VUE sales are up almost 50 percent.

Saturn sales overall for 2003 are up 2.5 percent.”

 

The sad thing is, Ford sells more Mustangs than Saturn does ions or dodge does Neons. Niether Ion or Neon really sell in focus/cavvy numbers.

One thing is for sure, that can't be good news.

 

They need to:
Put the Quad coupe front on the Ion Sedan
Get rid of the center IP
Give the car some cooler rims (17" option for all models)

 

I agree with all three of your points.

I currently own a Quad-coupe as my daily driver and really like it for what it is and I plan on putting some nice 17's on it by the end of the year since I cant stand the plus-sign wheels. While I understand that alot of people hate the center IP , i personally like it but Im the minority on that issue. Saturn should put the QC front on the sedan and make a redline version of the sedan as well to try to give it some life.

If it werent for the Vue Saturn would really be in trouble considering the L-series bombed and the Ion sedan looks like it is not doing as well as expected. If the 2005 Saturn Relay van/suv/crossover (regadged chevy) with its non-polymer body panels bombs then Saturn will really be in trouble.

The best thing GM could do is bring over the OPEL versions of the Delta and other platforms with metal non-polymer bodies ASAP to give Saturn an imediate revamp if the Ion sales dont pickup by the end of the 2004 MY. GM might consider rebadging Korean Daewoos to give Saturn a low cost entry cars to compete with low priced Kia's and Hyundai.

As the saying goes "if you cant beat them you might as well join them" and I think Saturn will become the brand of rebadged import cars (and rebadge american suvs) since it looks like they are currently losing the fight against imports.

 

wth is the point of Saturn anyway? is it the cookie, and strange design devision? or is it the cheap econobox devision?

in general, the general has so much overlap in its product lines over various brands that its really difficult to see the point in any of them anymore.

 

I think once the redlines come out Ion sales will go up. Saturn needs a Car to make the Ion look cool, and I think the Redline will change a lot of peoples minds about Saturn (look how good the SRT-4 has done)

 

If Saturn is having problems selling Ions now then they will have even more trouble when the newer and more conventional 05 Chevy Cobalt comes out next year.

 

I don't think it would be correct to assume that Cobalt won't sell simply because it shares the same platform with Ion. There are a number of things on Ion that would turn people off. The center guage pod being the first....along with the rubbery materials used inside and those odd looking wheels.

The Ion's been out for what...a couple years now? I would like to think that someone has been paying attention and made a comparison of the two to asses what not to do.

 

I think what he meant was that THe new Cobalt will sell so well that it will hurt Ion sale.

 

I was refering that a more traditionally-styled 05 cobalt could steal sales from the saturn ion.

 

Again, leads to the question: Why is there a Saturn Division in the 1st place?

The idea behind Saturn was to market it's cars differently via a totally independent network, from the plant to the dealer service department. If Saturn lived up to it's stated purpose, it's way of doing business was to spill over to the rest of GM. Almost a decade and a half later, one wonders what happened.

GM barely sank a dime of into the division in over a decade, and didn't expand Saturn's chassis & components to other carlines. Saturn's way of doing business never spilled over to other divisions.

Now Saturn seems set to become 'just another' GM division, making cars that Chevrolet used to make (possibly even loosing it's unique "no dent" plastic bodies). Importing or building Opels here under the Saturn name IMHO is a great idea. It keeps Saturn unique and keeps it competitive with imports (a large percentage of people don't even know Saturn is part of GM!).

Their current lineup (save the Vue) seem designed just to be weird. If the Colbalt's drawings and the people who have seen it so far are to be believed, it's going to be one of the best looking small cars on the road, and have the same performance and simular price. I don't see how it won't hurt Saturn.

 

Again this makes me pissed that GM cut off Olds. Cut the 100+ year old division to then not fund your newer one. I don't understand GM's logic sometimes.

 

I think if GM wants the Saturn line to survive and do well (not to mention have usefulness/place and identity), it should try to make it the Volvo of GM as cost effectively as possible. It already has that "care-bear" image and attracts the people who are highly concerned with safety and the environment. Any hybrid or electric vehicles should also appear as Saturns first. In the mean time, the Ecotec (while already efficient) should be redesigned and re-engineered for Saturns in particular to meet/exceed all the stringent pollution controls to steal some of that image from Honda. On the Volvo front, Saturns should build a strong image of safety and occupant protection (perhaps by studying what Volvo did to build this image?). I realize this will add cost with extra airbags and other equipment not to mention development and such, but I'm not suggesting it be done overnight. Besides image is a self propegating thing to an extent. If image is fed and advertised with the product to back up the image, people start bying into it and it snowballs.

But whatever GM does with Saturn, if it makes it another devision of rebadged Chevrolets, its all over for Saturn.

 

I currently own 2 Saturns (Vue and QuadCoupe) and I think they are both great cars and Saturn has the best service I have experienced.

That being said the Saturn concept was originally created by GM back in 1984 to be a small car import fighter and when the idea was brought to life and the cars went into production in 1990/91 they had a good start.

The problem is that the car industry is totally different then it was in 1984 with Hondas and Toyotas now being made in the US and Chevy is rebadging Daewoos (Pontiac used to) to compete with ultra-low priced Korean cars like Hyundia and Kia.

I love the idea and philosophy of Saturn but in reality the Saturn division of GM has been a money loser since the begining and GM has to change Saturn to meet the current competion and not the ones from 1984.

 

yeah I think saturn has lost it's identity.

the new models are so bland with such forgettable names that mean nothing to me as a car enthusiast...

why "ion"??

what's next...the saturn "photon," "neuron" or "molecule"???