So the car got a flat on a rear tire one Saturday morning. No big deal you'd think, especially as it was slow and lost the air on the driveway. Normally you'd just change the wheel and drop off the flat for repair or replacement. 20 mins of inconvenience. Unfortuantely there's no spare by design.

So we call Saturn assist as one is supposed to. We wait around until mid afternoon then the assist guy insists on searching the car for a spare just in case we're idiots, then decides he can't tow it as the car is front wheel drive and the flat is on the rear. I suggest he swap a tire to resolve the problem, which, eventually he does, once all the additional authorizations are done. 90 mins after arrival, the car is then towed to the local dealership 15 miles away.

I call and they say they don't have the tire and can't get one until the middle of the next week at best. They suggest I buy a Hankook. I point out that the tires are low resistance for the VUE GL, and mixing types isn't good practice. Oh, they say, you're right, we'll order one. I suggest that the dealership keep tires in stock as we're not the only people who will get a flat from time to time - this seems like something they can't do.

So, Thurs of the following week we get the GL back. Saturn has turned a 20 minute inconvenience into a 5 day issue. What would happen if we were out of the area? We'd be truly stuck.

There really was no reason that the Saturn engineers had to use the spare compartment for the batteries. They're not that big and I'm sure somewhere else could have been used.

So I ended up buying a used hub and wheel so I can take the crisis out of a simple thing most of the time.

What a useless design and poor customer service from Saturn. I despair of these people.