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First off, this thing looks like it’s grinning at me. I hate cars that look like they have faces.
Exterior:
A bizarre blend of angles makes it a little too busy for my taste. At least I was blessed with the body coloured roof pillar instead of that graphite one that has drawn widespread criticism. Body gaps were large (as expected), but not panel and paint finish was pretty good. One bizarre observation around the gas cap area (goofball who had the car before me brought it back on empty…a heartfelt thanks to whomever that was): once you open the steel panel to get to the gas cap, you see a very large cave. The filler neck must be installed to the steel structure, and there are a few inches between that and the outer polymer skin, leaving an awkward space in between. It was surprisingly difficult to get the cap off because of this.
Interior:
Um…what was someone thinking? The passenger side dashboard (and part of the drivers side) is covered with this textured plastic material that resembles an old ping pong paddle. The steering wheel is small, and has indentations where your fingers don’t want to be. The radio is tilted upwards, but the HVAC controls appear to be level to the floor. This odd contour continues up to the instrument cluster (more on this later). The door panels look 1-dimensional, and don’t have any material that feels good to the touch. Power door switch was in no-man’s land (about 3 inches across and 4 inches down from the side mirror on the door panel). Another annoying feature: the damn thing locks the doors whenever your speed goes above a certain point (couldn’t tell what that was because of the stupid speedometer location). If a doped-up Ben Johnson wants to carjack me, by all means, go ahead. I prefer my doors unlocked, thank you very much. Bonus points for having an auto-dimming rear view mirror…first time I’ve used one, and I don’t like it, but I wasn’t expecting to have it on a car like this. Seat fabrics were odd…sort of like a tightly knit nylon mesh. Gave me the chills every time I touched it.
Okay, now the speedo…why did they put it in the centre of the dash? I constantly found myself making unnatural motions to check my speed. It didn’t work well, and I would imagine that having to dart your eyes back and forth sideways is more tiring than an up and down motion. The needles did light up nicely though…it wasn’t all bad.
Driving Dynamics:
Okay, this part was pretty good. A little noisy at times when you wanted to get going quickly, and the stock tires don’t like cornering, but nevertheless it was a very composed ride, and feels so much better than the previous S series. Steering was fairly accurate, and the amount of power assist was perfect for me. Typical potholes didn’t shake the plastic panels off like they did with my old Saturn, so someone over there is doing their homework. All in all, a very pleasing ride.
Conclusion:
If you drive with your eyes closed, you can’t go wrong with this thing. But if you’re not Stevie Wonder, then I’d shop around just because of the odd interior. I could handle the exterior of this thing, and I’m sure I would grow to like it, but the interior was just too weird for me. Overall: 6/10.
(sorry about the poor picture quality...I'm sure you can find better ones on the Saturn website)
Cheers,
Mark
posted by 24.43.66...
, Wed, 3 Sep 2003 11:43:12
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