In October 2024 our 2018 Chrysler Pacifica shat the bed and refused to start. To be more precise: the 3.6 V6 Pentastar with numerous known catastrophic design issues did. More of that in a separate post.
Immediate need for a cheap, driveable car prompted my wife and myself to browse local Cragslist & Facebook marketplace for possible candidates. Shockingly there is no such thing as a $1000 beater anymore, at least not in the Seattle area. More like 20 year old $2500-$3000 beater and very few were under 100.000 miles or had all panels in a maching color.
Settled on a 2007 Saturn Aura in red with 97.000 miles, which is exactly the same car as our 2008 Pontiac G6 we sold in back in 2018. We picked it because of its simplicity, relative reliability, known failure modes and parts availability. Most of the common fixes I already practiced while owning the G6.
Not too bad for a car that's old enough to legally drink in Europe. The good: It starts without hesitation, runs relatively quiet and most equipment actually works. The bad: it's dirty inside and out, mostly inside though. Squaks: remote lock/unlock does not work, needs windshield wipers, nozzles, door lock/unlock buttons. Interior is worn (expected, since it's beige), missing passenger side carpet. Exterior is heavily scratched (not so visible in rain) and shows occasional rust.
Ideal $1000 beater, but since they do not exist anymore it's a $3200 beater after the Seattle ransom taxes and insurance.
Immediate fixups
Loading and unloading two little kids means the remote lock/unlock needs to work. Because the lock/unlock buttons were also broken, the first order of business was to figure out whether the wiring and motors are good. The trunk open button still worked, a good sign. I noticed the all 4 doors locked when the car was running and shifted to drive, ah! Is it just the remote then?
Dorman sells an aftermarket remote with an OBD2 programmer. Instructions were no good, but YouTube was. Success! For about $100 we have a working remote and can lock/unlock same as the people of the late 80s would! Beware, the non-OEM radio means it's giving a false-positive low-battery signal even when the battery is brand new. It's annoying, since after every start you get the message on your dash and need to dismiss it manually with a button. Maybe OEM GM remote from eBay would work better? Will try this later.
Replacing the wipers was a must, as it does rain here in Seattle in winter from time to time. Amazon takes care of this too for about $30. You do not really use the wiper fluid in winter, but it has to be fixed too. I hear the electric motor running, alas no spray just dripping. After a closer look I noticed the nozzles were missing from the housings. Yeah, cheap 3rd world junk, so I replaced it with the same 3rd world junk nozzles I found laying around from the G6 times.
Neither the trunk nor the hood struts held, luckily $30 fixes this too. The ones I bought from Amazon did not fit despite the "match" description. Easy fix: rethread the end caps with a tap and use the OEM removed from the old struts.
Sway bar links are a semi-regular maintenance item. They were cracked an dry and clunking. $25 on Amazon non-OEM. Also careful with the "OEM", apparently there is a low-end OEM and standard OEM available from AcDelco now.
Summer fixes
I got annoyed by the omni-present check-tires light. Turns out the Aura did not even have the TPMS installed. OEM ones are ridiculously expensive, to the point I could buy a spare wreck donor car. Mixed reviews for the Dorman, but I gave it a shot anyway. Installed myself, a bit more hassle than I would want it to be and finally; the check tires light is gone! Reprogramming done by deflate, inflate method.
Rusty spots are annoying. Takes a lot of time and some precision to touch up. Also the "match" color is not an exact match, since the paint is old and long exposed to the elements. At some point I'll find a body mechanic to make it look less damaged, not critical.
Valve cover oil leaks. Yeah, they take about half a day to replace. You need to remove the water pump, meaning more gaskets. While there you may want to replace the serpentine belt and squeaky pulleys.
While there, you may as well flush the coolant, since you need to burp the system anyway. Also replace the plugs, the plug wires. This adds up, total about $200 in parts.
Steel rims and the OEM wheel caps. They are actually quite nice, but cracked and scratched. I attempted aftermarket replacements and lost them about 100mi later. Junk. Back to OEM caps and painted with metallic cans. Look awesome now. You can get Dorman nuts if yours are broken or missing.
The actual master cleanse
It was really bad, not gonna lie. It was filthy, it stank worse than some of the diapers I changed over the past 5 1/2 years, no exaggeration. Compost under the hood and in the trunk. Stains on the seat, sticky spots on the dash ... I could go on. Nothing a dozen pairs of rubber gloves, hippie detergent, hot water, steam and elbow grease could not fix.
Seats had to come out, since there was a lot of mechanical cleanup required. Besides vacuum, hippie degreaser, hot water and steam were used. It was disgusting, a weaker stomach would hurl. All the rusty parts (seat rail spars, rear sear mount, etc.) were sprayed with a self-etching primer. Just the primer since this is a beater.
All carpet and seats were degreased, vacuumed and hot steamed while vacuumed at the same time. Multiple passes, the result is as good as it gets. See the vaccum picture for yourself, that's a single pass on a rear bench.
Next winter fixes
As I did not know the history of this car, at 103.000mi I decide to replace the transmission oil, filter and the pan gasket. Why? Because this is about the time we paid for a full transmission rebuild on our G6. It's not a high-performance car by any modern standard and it wasn't back in early 2000's either. Not sure why these relatively simple, 4-speed transmissions go bad so quickly. Anyway I got the OEM "grooved" gasket for the pan, FRAM filter (yeah, yeah, yeah, get a different one if your favorite YouTube mechanic disagrees). Valvoline ATF 7.4qt, although I found the actual volume to vary by source. Kinda-semi measured by how much I pulled out accounting for spills. And spill you will, since there is no drain on the pan.
I am working on getting the passenger presence sensor bypass. It's annoying and I seem to have some older design sensor that's not available anymore. More on this later. This is the very last dash-light that's on.
Future fixes
ECU reprogramming. It should be relatively simple and affordable to get about 10% HP back. It's not a new car, so basically making it stock again?
Exterior touch ups. Dents, scratches, etc. Mentioned earlier, but haven't done it yet.
