1997 SATURN SL — Complaint #664917
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:MANUAL TRANSMISSION:FLOOR SHIFT ASSEMBLY filed April 8, 2008
NHTSA complaint #664917 (ODI reference 10223752) concerns a 1997 SATURN SL and was filed on April 8, 2008. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 8, 2008. The vehicle had 118,075 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:manual transmission:floor shift assembly, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same SATURN SL cohort independently describe similar power train:manual transmission:floor shift assembly failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 1997 SATURN SL shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
I RECENTLY PURCHASED A 1997 SL1 AND ON THE 3RD DAY OF OWNING IT THE SHIFTER BROKE CAUSING IT TO GO LIMP. AT THE TIME I WAS ON THE 101 FREEWAY STUCK IN TRAFFIC WITH MY THREE CHILDREN. I CALLED MY MECHANIC AND HE TOWED IT TO HIS SHOP FOR REPAIRS. AFTER MAKING THE NECESSARY REPAIR, HE DID A ROUTINE MAINTENANCE CHECK. THIS WAS WHEN HE DISCOVERED THE OIL HAD WATER MIXED IN WITH IT CAUSING A WHITE SMOKE ESCAPING FROM THE EXHAUST PIPE. I'M CERTAIN THIS PROBLEM WAS RECOGNIZED BY THE PREVIOUS OWNER AND MOST LIKELY WAS THE REASON FOR SELLING. AFTER READING THE FOLLOWING COMPLAINTS FROM CAR SURVEY, I BELIEVE SATURN ENGINEERED THIS VEHICLE "BY DESIGN" WITH THESE PROBLEMS AS A FORECAST FOR REVENUE. *TR
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 664917 |
| ODI Number | 10223752 |
| Date Filed | April 8, 2008 |
| Failure Date | April 8, 2008 |
| VIN | 1G8ZF5288VZ |
Similar POWER TRAIN:MANUAL TRANSMISSION:FLOOR SHIFT ASSEMBLY Complaints for 1997 SATURN SL
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.