by Mr. Jay L.

Created on: May 19, 2008

I own a 2001 Saturn L200, and have put over a thousand miles on it. I have never been happier with a car than I am with this vehicle, nor have I ever had a better experience at a dealership. These two factors have ensured that I will remain a Saturn customer for the foreseeable future.

Since I own an aging, high mileage vehicle, I decided to examine the new vehicles for a potential replacement - especially the hybrid vehicles. The Hybrid Vue has a nice body style, comfortable interior, and good gas mileage for an SUV; as much as I have always wanted an SUV, with the price of gas I think I'll wait to see if the 2009 Vue gets better gas mileage than my current vehicle.

So I turned my attention to the Aura, which replaced the Ion, which replaced the L-Series. This vehicle is definitely an improvement over the Ion. The interior is as roomy as the cabin of my L200 and, though the seats aren't quite as comfortable, they are a vast improvement over the seats that were in the Ion. The interior styling of the vehicle has a classy sleekness to it that makes the interior of my vehicle look blocky by comparison. The trunk, by comparison, seems to be slightly smaller than that of the L-Series, but also seems to be more spacious and better designed than that of the Ion.

Looking at the exterior of the vehicle I could see the basic lines of my L200, though the Aura has some new design features that make the vehicle seem more sporty and hungrier. There is a sleekness that has been lacking in Saturn vehicles since the 3-Door Sports Coup went out of production several years ago, which makes the car visually appealing; after all, who would feel cool rolling down the road in something that looks either like a cockroach (a design that many GM vehicles shared in the '90s) or rolling lunch-box?

Since I happen to have an environmentalist outlook (and a thin wallet that's being pinched by high gas prices) I was particularly interested in the hybrid version of the Aura. Unfortunately, the hybrid version seems to be in limited production and distribution, since both dealerships I visited didn't have any on the lot the days that I visited. Using a bit proactive curiosity, I decided to jump on-line and do a little research on the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.

The Aura Green Line gets an estimated twenty-four miles to the gallon in the city and thirty-two miles to the gallon on the highway.

How utterly depressing and underwhelming. My car is almost eight years old, and gets about 23 MPG in

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