The end of an era may be drawing near

I've had a Saturn in my life for almost 20 years now.  We have been very loyal customers and I've had the pleasure of driving 3 regularly. It all started way back in 1995 I think. I believe I only had a learner's permit at the time when my parents bought our first Saturn. (It may have been 96 and a new license ... the details are fuzzy.) I remember being in the dealership with them when the purchase was made.  In college it became the car I had with me at school.  After college with a quick trip to the DMV it officially became mine.

We also had a purple Saturn in the family at some point ... it was my brother's and then became my dad's I think.

George and I were dating when he bought himself a black Saturn Ion.  After we got married we became a 2 Saturn family.  That lasted until we decided to buy him a new truck (that wasn't falling apart) and we wanted to save a little money on insurance so I sold my dependable silver Saturn.

Then Saturn went out of business.  A sad, sad day in our family but Saturn's have treated us well and we didn't have any problems with the car .... until recently.  In the past year ... 1 of the power windows broke, getting stuck in the down position and is currently locked in the up position. The passenger side mirror fell off (due to an error on my part, too close to the side of the garage on the day I had to take George to the ER.) We drove around with some snazzy duct tape and glue holding it together for a while but we did replace it eventually.

The key occasionally gets stuck in the ignition.  With some jimmying and re-putting the car in park it can usually be fixed after a few tries ... usually.  On rare occasions I may or may not have given up and run in places quickly with the keys left in the ignition though.  All these are things we've been able to fix or learn to live with but the end may finally be nearing.  We recently were hearing lots of loud noises and after a check up at the mechanics found there was a whole in a pipe.  A small whole that could be easily fixed only the part was hard to find and maybe we would have to spend more money to replace the whole carburetor instead because the simple small parts don't really exist anymore.  What should have been an over night repair wound up taking a week waiting for the part after it was finally found.  We love the Saturn and would buy a new one in a heartbeat if they still existed but maybe it's time to start looking at other options so we're ready if another big surprise comes along .....