Hoping for a Saturn like buying experience.

[Kit352]

Who else here is old enough to remember what it was like to buy a Saturn when they first came out? It was essentially a party in your honor. Factory tours, events, factory pick ups etc. I'm hoping Slate does this type of thing as well to really build a community atmosphere for the truck.

 

[Luxrage]

I remember seeing ads for the big Saturn homecoming parties they'd throw at the factory. Looks like it was a blast. There's just something about a Hootie and the Blowfish for just one brand's factory that you wouldn't get from a modern automaker.

The EV range might affect a Warsaw homecoming for a lot of us LOL

Edit: Just did the ABRP for the Slate and it is 17 hours with the extended range, not bad.

 

[raybythelake]

Who else here is old enough to remember what it was like to buy a Saturn when they first came out? It was essentially a party in your honor. Factory tours, events, factory pick ups etc. I'm hoping Slate does this type of thing as well to really build a community atmosphere for the truck.

I well remember that. Let's not forget the "Saturn Homecoming" events at the factory — a gear head version of Woodstock!

 

[GaRailroader]

I bought a new Saturn SL2 in 1992, I don’t remember any fanfare for the delivery. They did have an owners appreciation day once per year held at the minor league baseball stadium with free tickets. Always liked going to watch the Salem Avalanche once per year on Saturn owners appreciation day.

 

[Kit352]

I bought a new Saturn SL2 in 1992, I don’t remember any fanfare for the delivery. They did have an owners appreciation day once per year held at the minor league baseball stadium with free tickets. Always liked going to watch the Salem Avalanche once per year on Saturn owners appreciation day.

You didn't get the "I say, we say, thank you for your purchase" celebration? When I bought my saturns up until about the year 2000 they would have you drive under a balloon trellis and drop the balloons and the whole dealership would come out and congratulate you and give you Saturn gifts. I still have a bunch of shirts and key chains and stuff from them. Any Saturn owner was invited to the factory for any events they had for free. There were regional ones as well. Summer league baseball games on Cape cod were free to attend when Saturn sponsored them.

 

[Benjamin Nead]

My wife bought our 4-door Saturn SL1 in 1996, a lightly used 1995 one from the dealer. I ended up taking over payments on it a few years later, when the next big auto purchase she financed was a minivan. I drove that Saturn for almost 2 decades as my own car. It was a 5 speed manual shift and, notable to a Slate audience, with manual crank windows and the ubiquitous plastic body panels on steel frame that Saturn was known for.

I don't think we really got "the full Saturn treatment" on purchase day, since we were buying used, not new. But I seem to remember people coming out of the office cubicles when the salesperson handed the keys to us, to sing a chanting-like song of some sort. Kinda cute, but that was about it.

What I do remember when bringing it back to the dealer for occasional checkups or minor service in the late 1990s was the 2 or 3 slightly smaller 2-door coupes in the front lot that were, in fact, GM EV1s. I inquired about them once and got a sort of "if you have to ask how much, you probably can't afford it" polite brush off. What I wasn't being told at the time was that Tucson was a test market for the all-electric EV1 and that they were a premium lease-only item. I didn't get the full story until several years later when I saw the 2006 film Who Killed The Electric Car?.

 

[SadRobot]

I bought a new Saturn SL2 in 1992, I don’t remember any fanfare for the delivery. They did have an owners appreciation day once per year held at the minor league baseball stadium with free tickets. Always liked going to watch the Salem Avalanche once per year on Saturn owners appreciation day.

I don't remember that either. We had 3 Saturns in my family and all I remember was that they had the $9,999 deal for a Saturn SL. Kind of crazy to think of a time when a brand new car was under 10k.

 

[Shay]

I think the experience will be more simple, no salespeople, no sitting around waiting. Point, click....like ordering a box of K-Cups from Amazon (except there's a credit app if you are financing).

 

[Luxrage]

If these are going to be shipped to and distributed through service centers as discussed in a different thread, I'd hope the process would be like renting a U-Haul. Walk in, give 'em your info. Fill out some paperwork, walk around the outside and note any cosmetic damage / issues for them to send back to Slate for parts ordering, get the keys and go.

Hopefully with the Slate University thing they're going to roll out for DIY-ers they'll have the full owners manual and quick-start guide for driving posted well in advance.