10.0

really awful
Crashes / Fires:
0 / 0
Injuries / Deaths:
0 / 0
Average Mileage:
0 miles

About These NHTSA Complaints:

The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.

Get notified about new defects, investigations, recalls & lawsuits for the 2005 Saturn Vue:

Unsubscribe any time. We don't sell/share your email.

problem #1

Feb 092006

Vue

  • miles
We purchased our 2005 Saturn Vue in April of 2005. We had no performance problems for the first 10-12000 miles. Then we started to get a slipping in the transmission that prevented acceleration. This happened repeatedly, a couple of times when I was trying to merge into on-coming traffic. I cannot tell you how disconcerting it is to be accelerating into traffic with your two kids in the car, and than your engine revs like it is in neutral and you cannot move! we took the car into the Saturn dealer on two separate occasions for this problem. Both times we were told they could not duplicate the problem. Than on February 9th, 2006, my husband was leaving his work, and could not get out of his parking space, as his car would not go into reverse. It would go forward, but only when in park. We had the car towed to the libertyville Saturn dealer, and, of course, they were unable to detect a problem. They said if the car is cold, the computer will prevent the transmission from being engaged, to avoid transmission damage. They also said that the slipping in the transmission was "normal operation" for the cvt transmission. Well, I did not have this issue happen when I test drove the car, and for approximately 5 months after. I do not have the problem for a week or so after an oil change. I feel that there is a blatant performance problem with the cvt (continuous variable transmission) continuous implies that the transmission varies "continuously" I can assure you, if my car had done this while I was test driving it, I never would have bought the car. It is a safety hazard, and makes me extremely anxious when I am driving, as there is no way to anticipate when it will happen. Saturn has repeatedly stated that this "slipping" is normal. I have found several web sites on the web with people complaining of this exact problem.

- Wheaton, IL, USA