I'm not denying your experience but most of the Saturn owners I know
really like their Saturns. Saturn reliability was better than the GM
average, however, because Saturn is being openly repositioned to
replace Oldsmobile as a GM brand with no special status that's about
impossible to continue.

From a work-on-them point of view I've always preferred GM-the
smallblock Chevy, the Corvair 6, Olds Quad 4, the Cadillac 472/500, the
THM 350/400/700R4 slushboxes, GM alternators, pumps, 53 and 71 series
Detroit Diesels, all first rate in my book. Their flaws are well known
and either fixable or avoidable. To be fair GM has built plenty of
total ****boxes too, but everyone knew or should have they were rolling
abortions before they bought them. The Vega (through and through), the
60 degree V6 engines, the Olds diesel, the THM Metric 200 and variants,
are just some of the GM disasters.

The early Mazdas were rust traps but they fixed that and they are
pretty good cars but then so are (most) all the Japanese cars. I'm not
anti-Japanese. Parts are high but you don't need as many and used
engines and transaxles can be had from Japanese yards cheap. If I
build a Locost that's probably the way I'll go.

VWs have gotten ridiculously expensive. I looked at the diesel when I
bought the Saturn however the price difference was just too much even
with $2/gallon gas.