NHTSA Complaint #10178778 — 2004 SATURN ION

VEHICLE RANDOMLY WON'T START. MORE FREQUENTLY DURING COLD AND/OR DAMP WEATHER, BUT NOT ALWAYS. VEHICLE WILL EITHER DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OR START TO CRANK AND STOP OR AFTER REPETITIVE TRIES, START AND RUN VERY ROUGH THEN CUT OUT. I HAVE LOST COUNT OF THE NUMBER OF TIMES THIS HAS OCCURRED TO ME. IN MOST CASES I HAVE LEFT THE DISABLED VEHICLE SITTING FOR A DAY AND TRIED AGAIN THE FOLLOWING DAY TO HAVE IT EITHER START UP LIKE NOTHING EVER HAPPENED OR START, RUN ROUGH AND EVENTUALLY SMOOTH OUT. MANY OF THESE INCIDENTS HAVE OCCURRED IN MY DRIVEWAY AND JUST CAUSED ME TO BE LATE FOR WORK AND INCONVENIENCED. TWICE IT HAS LEFT ME STUCK AT WORK SCRAMBLING TO FIND SOMEONE TO PICK MY CHILDREN UP FROM DAY CARE. AND TONIGHT IT LEFT ME STRANDED IN THE COLD DURING THE MIDST OF AN ICE-STORM AT 11 PM...AND AGAIN, LATE FOR WORK. THESE ARE NOT OLD VEHICLES EXPERIENCING THIS PROBLEM AND AFTER READING THE VAST COMPLAINTS, IT IS CERTAINLY NOT AN ISOLATED PROBLEM. SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE, THE CONSUMER SHOULD NOT HAVE TO PAY FOR AN OBVIOUS MANUFACTURER DEFECT. I WILL BE CONTACTING SATURN IN THE MORNING TO ATTEMPT GETTING IT REPAIRED. *JB