2002 Saturn Ion car wont crank

"it will turn over wont crank"? Those are the same thing.

The "Battery" warning light means the battery is not being recharged while you're driving, so naturally it's going to run down, typically within an hour or less. It's the charging system you need to have tested. Spark plugs have nothing to do with cranking the engine.

If the generator is found to be defective, repeat failures are very common, but the number can be reduced by replacing the battery at the same time unless it is less than about two years old. If the battery you installed is older than two years, replace it with a new one. These generators develop huge voltage spikes and the battery is the main component in damping and absorbing those spikes. They lose their ability to do that as they age and the lead flakes off the plates.

There's a clinker in yer thinker! You're right about worn spark plugs causing running problems that lead to diagnostic fault codes being set and the Check Engine light turning on, but that isn't related to this problem. You have to be careful when you do a search for a "no-start" condition or when you describe that because that can mean a few different things, just like "I'm in pain, ... Why", can mean many different things. In this case, you have a failure of the starter to crank the engine, which is related to the battery not having been recharged while you were driving. "Doesn't start" can also mean the starter works just fine but the engine won't run. That's where we get confused a lot. The second condition is where spark plugs can become involved.

Don't worry about the Check Engine light at this time. The Engine Computer requires proper system voltage to perform its tasks and it knows it can't do some of those when the battery is running down. That will cause various phantom problems to be detected, and some of the resulting diagnostic fault codes will trigger the Check Engine light to turn on.

Have the charging system tested before you do anything else. You may need to charge the battery slowly for an hour with a portable charger. With your new battery, you should be able to drive for 20 - 30 minutes to get to a repair shop as long as you don't turn on anything that isn't needed like the heater fan and radio. I know the engineers at GM insist the head lights must turn on so that will cut your driving time quite a bit.

Jv lightning this is a saturn car also if its a Its not a ion they didnt make those till 2003 so what model do you have? Also the battery light sounds like a bad alternator. The model will help me help you with the proper diagnosis. These cars are my specialty.

With the key in the run position is the security light on solid or flashing?

Your going to have to do some testing guessing gets expensive quick. Do you have a multi meter to do some testing?

Iam really sorry to hear that I hope you have a fast full recovery. But without testing I would only be wasting your money till we guessed correctly.

Auto zone rents them for free but you have to leave a deposit.

You can find a perfectly fine digital meter at Harbor Freight Tools for less than ten bucks. Walmart, Sears, any hardware store, and any auto parts store will have these meters too, but don't waste your money on features you don't need. Most notably this is auto-ranging. I have over a dozen meters including one I bought for $400.00 in the mid '70s. None of mine have auto-ranging because I don't have the time to wait for it to do its thing, and it's too easy to forget to look with each reading to see which range it selected.

By the way, my $400.00 meter is "lab accuracy". 40 years later, the $7.95 meter from Harbor Freight Tools is just as accurate and 1/20th the size.

I stopped following this post but I get the feeling you're headed for the starter circuit to start the diagnosis. Charge the battery first for an hour with a portable charger and you'll see the engine cranks just fine. The "Battery" light proves this is a charging problem, not a starting problem.