Working on Saturn

Okay, so I was not working on Saturn, or even a Saturn V, but 2002 Saturn SC2, to the point, my car. Okay my wife's car. Last week I had taken it for an oil change and an inspection, where the guys told me, well it has a check engine light, so we have to run a diagnostic, then we can tell you what to fix. Okay, $60 when Autozone does it for free? Well I do know that the hand held readers do not go as deep and there are some error codes they just don't read. But when they told me that it was going to cost more to fix the car than the car is worth, I lost my cool, told them to remove it from the diagnostic gear, give me the readout and good bye. I took the car home, and started reading the list of repairs, which included replace the radiator fan motor, and coolant sensor. Okay a lot of sensor's need replaced, but the good thing about sensors is most of them are where you can get at them. A trip to the car parts store, and under a hundred bucks later I have 2 gallons of pre-mixed antifreeze, an engine coolant temperature sensor, a PCV valve and a Haynes manual. In less than an hour I had the aforementioned parts in place, had refilled the resevoir and the car looked good! No more error light on the dash (which had only started).

Polly had mentioned that the car had run hot on occasion, but not so much that it was a worry (just warmer than usual and this was prior to my work). Well after about a week the low coolant light started coming on and would not stay off. After more investigation I find that Polly thinks we have a leaky radiator, but I think it is the hose (mostly because a hose is WAY cheaper than a radiator) so I replace the hose, refill the fluids and satisfy myself that there was a pinhole leak in the hose (BTW there has never been a puddle of coolant under the car until now as I spilled a bit whilst changing the hose. Looks good at first, and about a mile away, coolant low light. This is frustrating, the engine is not getting hot, the coolant is moving through the system, what is the deal? Well further investigation leads me to suspect the fan is not turning. Like the fact that the fan is not turning. So I check the fuses...30 amp fuse, and yup it is blown. New fuse, and a fill up of the radiator, since the fan was not running, looks like we have been losing a bit of steam, so to speak. Test drive looks good and we will see in the morning.

Total outlay for parts:

• $12.00 Coolant sensor
  
• $20.00 Coolant premix
• $3.00 PCV Valve
• $20.00 Repair manual (still find good references on the net, but this is nice to have)
• $18.00 hose
• $5.00 Fuse

So for a total of $78.00 I resolved a cooling system issue, and 1 hour of laber is $60.00, plus I did not have to buy a radiator fan. And the guys at Autozone read my error codes for the other things I need to fix, so I can get started on them too. I still need to take it in for a clutch, and some other major repairs at a later date, but what the heck so far this has not been such a bad deal.

Now if only GM could fix their problems with Saturn...