Comparative Review: The 2009 Saturn Vue XR
April 29, 2009
Update: August 28, 2009
The wife and I are planning a cross-country trip with the dogs. My BMW 323i is nearing 100K miles, and is in the every-repair-costs-a-fortune territory. Based on what I spent last year, I could easily have funded the payments on a new BMW (yes, they can certainly last forever, but you need to spend a fortune for the privilege!). The wife's Saturn Ion is too small for long-distance traveling, and the dogs will have killed each other or us by the end of a long trip.
So we decided to cash in the two cars and get a single replacement. We focused the investigation on the following:
- BMW X3
- Nissan Morono
- Nissan Rogue
- Saturn Vue
The X3 is "nice" but not worth the cost. My BMW dealer, BMW of Austin, has an excellent policy of providing BMW loaners when a car is in for maintenance. Due to my many repairs, I got to try out a wide sampling of vehicles. The 3-series is still awesome, despite being Bangle-ized in the interior, a disgusting trend of taking the definition of a driver's car and turning it into the family saloon.
The X3 is basically a SUV-ish 3-series, a very solid rider. However, with base units selling in the low $40K range, it does not distinguish itself. The interiors feel cheap and utilitarian, not what you'd expect from a luxury car. One can argue that one's actually paying for performance, but the notion of "handling" in a glorified truck is a strange one to me. So the X3 was off the list, regretfully. Perhaps one day BMW will fire Chris Bangle and poach some designers from Mercedes. I'll come back when I need a sedan. Not a coupe, a sedan. From the inventor of the sports SEDAN (BMW NA has a peculiar obsession with two-door cars, often not offering models available in Europe, like the 4-door M3).
The Morono (Murano) is a bit larger than the X3, but feels a lot larger, a driving barge, with poor road feel. The road feel and spatial awareness disqualified it.
The Rogue is a scaled-down Murano, with a smaller cargo space. It's a great vehicle, with good road feel and great design. However, for some reason, Nissan's limiting them to 4-cylinder engines, with a peak bhp of around 170. There are also toys we liked on the Morono, such as the rear-view camera, which either aren't offered on the Rogue, or would cost a fortune to add (to get a self-dimming mirror required the addition of a multi-thousand-dollar "package" and wasn't available from the dealer as an individual option--a MIRROR. The same mirror, same OEM manufacturer, is available commercially for a hundred bucks or so).
Around the time we had decided to abandon the car replacements, we visited Saturn, and were exposed to the Vue XR.
My basic impression is that the engineers set their sights on the X3, and built an X3 that they could sell for $15,000 less.
“...the engineers set their sights on the X3, and built an X3 that they could sell for $15,000 less.”
The Cons
- The rear windows don't go all the way down. They stop about 2" above the door. The dogs find this very inconvenient.
- Early-morning condensation with the AC dialed way down.
- 17-19 mpg in the city!
- The car seems very sensitive to tire pressure. A 1-psi difference on the front tires has the car seeking the side of the road if you release the wheel. Not aggressively, just moseying along.
- Pulls to the right in hard acceleration. Engine Torque?!
- We had a loaner while the car was being prepped. It had mushy power steering at low engine power. Groooan while backing out. Not an issue once we got going. The power steering was normal on the final car.
- Non-telescoping wheel. It tilts, but a couple of inches would add a lot to driver comfort.
- Xenon headlamps are not an option.
- There is a petty difference between the XR and the Redline (next up)'s transmission lever. On BMWs, and Audis, and others, to go from automatic to manual, you just flip the lever to the side, then can click up and click down. This is also how the Redline works. On the XR, you have to pull back to Manual (engaging an override button!), and then use a thumb-button on the lever handle to do the gear thing. It seems a pretty crude attempt to try to create a difference between the XR and the next up. In fact, they call the normal way of doing this an “upline” shifter.
- I'd have put the computer controls on the armrest.
- Right front passenger doesn't have control of the car locks or windows.
- The cupholders are pretty shockingly badly designed, especially for an American car. They're waaaaay down there, which leads the user to a temptation to pinch the top of a cup. With a styrofoam or paper cup, this can be messy. Also, two "large" cups do not fit well.
- Coming from the BMW world, I'm used to window controls that just "work." Stab a down button, you're done with the task and can continue driving. You know the window will catch up as soon as it can. Same with raising a window. For some reason, this seems to be very esoteric technology with other carmakers, with some offering the cherished feature on say the driver's side only, and even then only in one direction. I'd like to see fully-automatic windows on all four windows in both directions and controllable by all four occupants.
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-Lastly, as a Don Norman fan, this fuel indicator design is interesting. What is the pump and arrow supposed to represent. Is the filler on the left or right side?
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Update: August 28, 2009
We’ve had the vehicle for four months now. Overall, still pleased with the purchase. The build quality remains excellent. The main ongoing issues are:
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-The condensation over the center air vents, mentioned above. During warm, humid mornings (de rigeur in Texas in the morning), rivulets of water can be seen trickling down.
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-The transmission... while... not awful... is not up to the overall quality of the rest of the car. Engine response is pretty slow and jerky, and there are perceptible lags during gear changes. I find I never use the “manumatic” function since there is such a huge time delay between selection and the transmission catching up. A BMW it is not.
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-Both rear passenger windows show a bit of scratching on the outer surface. We’re taking it in for maintenance soon and will ferret out the cause of that. We raise and lower the windows frequently for the dogs.
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- The driver’s seat has started making a loud clanking sound when moving from full back (me) to full forward (wife).
The pros
I love plastic shrouds
(you can click on a picture for a larger version)
Overall, the Vue is a MUCH better car than the Ion or anything else I've seen from Saturn. Better-quality materials, from the windshield to the trunk.
Systems
- Good road feel, but not overwhelming. After 10 years on the 323i w/sports suspension, my butt is ready for a softer ride.
- 257 bhp on the V6.
- Anti-lock brakes and a stability control system.
- A 6-speed manumatic transmission. Need engine braking, or better power response, just pop the lever into M and you can start to mash gears. Your head will snap back from a fast start. The current gear setting is displayed in the center console when in M mode.
- Nice, big mirrors.
- Onstar. I learned that Onstar is actually a satellite communications system. That’s pretty cool.
- Bluetooth interface for many cell phones (the car will dial out through your cell phone, and you can manipulate dialing options via the wheel).
- Cruise control.
- Auto-dimming rear mirror.
- A very nice onboard computer, with a center-instrument status display.
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This includes:
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- Well-written manual. Strangely, the only way to get a PDF is to go to the "user site", run by GM, register with a VIN, and download it. Weird.
Furnishings
The Vue has a well-designed interior, mostly.
- Nice instrument layout.
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-Very nice, moody yet functional lighting.
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- A huge glove box
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-Split armrest and a huge center console storage area.
- Left and right door storage.
- Recessed (practical) coin drawer.
- Easily accessible fuse box.
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- A net for maps.
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-A very sophisticated radio, including XM support and an audio jack on the front.
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-On-wheel audio controls for the radio, phone, and Onstar.
- Fold-down seats.
- Intelligent positioning of driver-side window controls.
- Gun storage. There's a drawer under the passenger seat which can be nicely configured to hold a handgun. There's also a small amount of storage above the spare tire that can hold a handgun.
- Utility bars on the top of the car.
- A "no-pressure" lock on the rear cargo door.
