[MotorMouth]

I pulled the RL out of the garage this morning to let it warm up and noticed a fairly large puddle that was a little out of place. It was fairly clear and I almost passed it up as water but took a closer look. Glad I did, because it was Mobil 1.

Needless to say I was a bit irritated. I took the car down to the fire station and took a closer look. I let it run for a second and oil was running down the back of the motor and on to the ground. I called Saturn and they had a flatbed out in about 15 min to pick up the car. I did not want to risk driving it to the dealership not knowing what the problem was.

The service manager called me about 2 hours later and told me what was leaking. Apparently the green rubber gasket that seals the Cam Position Sensor to the head was faulty, causing the leak. I stoped in at the service department and he was very cool about it and took the time to show me in detail what had happened. I asked him if possibly there was a TSB repair to the CPS from the no start issue that a few cars have had but there records did not show it. The gasket was no where to be found in the metro (Minneapolis/StPaul) area so they had to order one next day from out state.

I felt bad looking at my brand new car half way taken appart to remove a bad gasket but such is life I guess.

I can't say that I am not upset about having a leaky new car but the people at the dealership were very nice and set me up with a rental car right away. Hopefully this is not a precurser of things to come and just an isolated incident.

Jurry is still out though.

 

[LoungeLizard]

I had my stock cat blow out after 200 miles. Hope mine is isolated too.

 

[shaneathan]

I pulled the RL out of the garage this morning to let it warm up and noticed a fairly large puddle that was a little out of place. It was fairly clear and I almost passed it up as water but took a closer look. Glad I did, because it was Mobil 1.

Needless to say I was a bit irritated. I took the car down to the fire station and took a closer look. I let it run for a second and oil was running down the back of the motor and on to the ground. I called Saturn and they had a flatbed out in about 15 min to pick up the car. I did not want to risk driving it to the dealership not knowing what the problem was.

The service manager called me about 2 hours later and told me what was leaking. Apparently the green rubber gasket that seals the Cam Position Sensor to the head was faulty, causing the leak. I stoped in at the service department and he was very cool about it and took the time to show me in detail what had happened. I asked him if possibly there was a TSB repair to the CPS from the no start issue that a few cars have had but there records did not show it. The gasket was no where to be found in the metro (Minneapolis/StPaul) area so they had to order one next day from out state.

I felt bad looking at my brand new car half way taken appart to remove a bad gasket but such is life I guess.

I can't say that I am not upset about having a leaky new car but the people at the dealership were very nice and set me up with a rental car right away. Hopefully this is not a precurser of things to come and just an isolated incident.

Jurry is still out though.

The majority of us have had no problems with our cars. Yes, the jurry [sic] is still out, but isolated problems happen all the time, even to Toyotas and Hondas. . .

 

[Fineline]

I had the same problem with mine at about 1200 miles. Went back twice for repairs on the seal in as many months but haven't had any problems since. Once your engine gets more broken in I think you'll be ok. Get it fixed and hang in there. Numerous other people had the same leak as well.

 

[redline14]

Yeah, that's the same thing that happened to me...but don't be surprised if you start having starting issues.........

 

[SilverBulletRL]

This is what happened with mine. Turned out to be a warped cam sensor gasket. Have the dealer check it out.

 

[Vita]

six months and they'll have a new design for the gasket, be glad you noticed it when you did, i had been checking for this for quite some time, and noticed it at 7000, i was 4 quarts low on oil, i believe that i have acquired a knock too, but i'm going to investigate that one

 

[LoungeLizard]

A knock? Thats not good...

 

[Vita]

no, it is not, they said there was not a noticable noise, so i took the car, and checked it out later, seems to be still there, especially if you have someone rev the car to 2k and have your head up under the front. i'm going to see if a brand new one has this sound, if so, i'll check about 2-3 more, if all the same, then fine, otherwise, they'll have to arrange for a loaner for me while they decide to either tear down the engine, or replace it entirely, no way a car with 7500 miles should have a knock...

 

[hbko181]

I had the same problem, at 600 miles, the cam sensor gasked leaked. At my dealership where I work, yeah at Saturn, a tech fixed it once and it did it again, he had no clue what he was doing, I was pissed. Anyhow its been fixed since then and with 2,200 miles on it its been fine. I have not incurred any starting issues with it yet though.
We have had about 30-40 Regular ION's with that problem, we've been putting in new ignition switches in them, apparently they cant take the extreme cold and the sensor in them screws up so the new ones should fix the problem.

 

[haunter]

no way a car with 7500 miles should have a knock...

sure it should if you drive missing over the half the required oil in the car


we already got a software update after killing the cat, and the plugs were ruined once thanks to too much fuel

if you dont want crap to happen you dont buy first production year specialized cars

 

[MotorMouth]

Well I got the car back this afternoon and the leak is cured. Hopefully I don't have anymore oil on the garage floor anytime soon.

Glad I noticed it wheh I did, seizing the motor up might have sucked.

 

[Guest]

I had the same problem, at 600 miles, the cam sensor gasked leaked. At my dealership where I work, yeah at Saturn, a tech fixed it once and it did it again, he had no clue what he was doing, I was pissed. Anyhow its been fixed since then and with 2,200 miles on it its been fine. I have not incurred any starting issues with it yet though.
We have had about 30-40 Regular ION's with that problem, we've been putting in new ignition switches in them, apparently they cant take the extreme cold and the sensor in them screws up so the new ones should fix the problem.

I got an email from my father today. He works for Saturn with the design team as a tool maker. He talked to the guys in service engineering about the problem. Here is part of the email.

"There is however, an oil leak that has been identified on many Red Line engines that comes from the cam sensor. This leak is caused by excessive oil pressure at the sensor. This pressure causes the gasket to fail. The resulting oil leak may drip downward and appear to come from the transmission area. They told me that you should expect to have this leak on your vehicle. This leak must be repaired by the dealer because of the danger of having the cams get out of position during repair. The proper repair is to remove cam sensor from engine, clean recessed hole, apply Saturn brand gray RTV around the inside diameter of groove (don't cover the hole in groove), install a new gasket on sensor and reassemble."

Just in case anyone was interested. I am going to go have mine checked out.