Saturn Ion Red Line: In The Autoblog Garage Wrap-Up

A funny thing happened to me over the weekend. My computer blew up. There I was ready to write a full reporting of my weekend in the Saturn Ion Red Line and instead I spent it at Micro Center trying to build a new computer using my old hard drives. When the bill started to eclipse my Autoblog salary I decided to go the route of buying an already built PC and transfer any saved info I could.

Needless to say this was keeping me from writing, driving, taking more photos etc.

Therefore, the poor Red Line did not get as extensive a test as I would have liked to give it. But to be honest I don?t think any more driving would have impressed me in this vehicle. In the Ion?s plus column I have:

• Nicer interior than expected
  Amazing Recaro seats
  Superb stock stereo
  Tight handling
  Quick shifter
  Quad doors

The negatives though include:

• Horrible clutch action
  Steering wheel needs an extra half turn in many situations
  Alignment was off considerably
  Very annoying squeak would not go away
  Outdated exterior style
  Not enough torque
  Center mounted gauges were never looked at
  $21,000 price tag

As mentioned earlier it seems the Red Line can be found for much less than the sticker if you look for it. But what would really drive a person to the Red Line? If you?re a Saturn fan and want a bit more power than I can understand the purchase. However, there wasn?t enough performance to make me choose the Saturn over any of the competition. In fact, this is why I?d like to see Mazda come out with a Mazdaspeed 3 at $21,000. Saturn though has a long way to go before they can match the quality and performance of the rest of the compact tuners out there. The Dodge SRT-4, Civic Si, Acura RSX, Scion tC and Toyota XRS all seem like better packages that offer a variety of performance and features that Saturn can?t match.

Check out Days 1 and 2.