Did I ruin my vehicle?

If your engine is burning oil “very quickly” then it is already in a lot of trouble. Your rings are shot at the very least, which is the reason that you’re burning oil. The darkness in the oil is an indication that combustion products (from the cylinders) are cycling back into the lubricating oil, and that’s not going to be doing any good for the rest of the oil cycle. That degrades the oil’s lubricating capability, and adds to the problems you already have.

At some point when you drive with insufficient lubrication the engine will simply overheat too much and seize up. From that point until major repairs are done (if anyone should even perform them) the engine will never turn over again. (Most engines don’t, at that point, because repair is simply uneconomical then.) If you intend to keep the car and want the thing to run for very much longer then you should face up to the fact that the engine already needs significant work done.

You may find that it’s already uneconomical to perform the required repairs to a car this old with an engine in this much trouble, and at that point it’s just a choice of continuing to drive as long as possible (bad mileage and excessive oil use be damned, and keep a case of oil in the trunk), or see what you can do about an immediate replacement. Normally “a ring job”, if that’s all that’s required, wouldn’t be a make-or-break decision with a car, but with a ‘99 Saturn you’ve got to consider the entire value of the car before you put another few hundred dollars into it. (I suspect more than that, because if you’ve let the car go that far in terms of the engine, then there are probably other major system problems – how are your brakes, for example?)

Older cars burn oil more rapidly than newer cars.

Also, cars can run considerably longer than advertised between oil changes, and even without oil (in DIRE circumstances. Definitely not preferred. In fact, forget I even mentioned it), but the point is your car is probably ok. Just don’t let it happen again.

Check the oil level weekly (or however often necessary), and take it to someone you trust for a checkup/tuneup.

Like ^^^ mentioned, check out your options and get it fixed, or get another car. Even if you need to spend a decent amount of money, it may be worth fixing. My ‘94 Corolla has nearly 300,000 miles, and we’ve invested 1–2000 in stuff to keep it going that long. But at those times, it was much better than spending 20k+ on a new car… It all depends on your values and preferences…

If you are low on oil – - DO NOT DRIVE – - the vehicle. It wlll end up on the side of the road with a hole in the side of the engine. You must check the engine daily for oil, yes I know that is PITA, I owned a sixties VW Bug and had to check every morning for oil.

Get the oil changed NOW. If you have not had an oil changed in the last 5000 miles it is time or you will be walking.

When the car is cool, open the radiator cap and look inside. Does the stuff look like a milkshake or is it reasonably transparent like normal radiator fluid? If you have a milkshake in there then most likely it is a leaking head gasket. You will need to get it fixed. Spark plugs will begin to gunk up and performance will suffer.
If the car still drives well you have a problem but one that might not be worth fixing. I know that finances are tight. You might be better off burning a quart a week and keeping a case of oil in the trunk. You should get an oil and filter change now then run the car into the ground. You might get another two years or 50,000 miles out of it.

I drove a ‘93 Saturn that pissed oil badly. Frankly, I really abused that car. I would often neglect to keep an eye on the oil and would drive it to that “ticking” point. The oil would, as you say, barely show on the dipstick.

While I’m not endorsing that kind of neglect, I will say that despite doing that dozens of times, the engine held up for a good long life, and the body fell apart before the engine gave out. Those were very tough little engines.

If it was ticking you did damage to your engine. The question would be how much damage, and the answer could range from hardly any, to a substantial amount. Unfortunately the only way to know would be to open your engine block up.

As has been posted never run your car with low oil. Call a tow or a friend or something first. with hardly any oil on the dip-stick you’re lucky you didn’t seize the engine (in which case it would need to be completely replaced, or more likely, the car junked).

Your car burning oil off fast is probably a symptom of maintenance needs. New spark plugs, new seals, injectors, etc, etc….. Old cars do tend to burn oil off faster, but it shouldn’t be an entire engines worth inside of a week. A lot of those maintenance things would cost well under $100 at a mechanics to fix, or if you know anyone involved in cars most of it is basic (plugs for example takes about 4 minutes, and most of that time is looking for the right socket wrench).

You should have a mechanic examine the car and make recommendations. At minimum a compression test should be performed. As @WasCy says the rate of oil consumption indicates worn rings or valve seats. A series of compression tests can determine which is which. If the rings are ok and the top end bad, that’s good as a head job is a lot cheaper than a bottom-end rebuild.
In the meantime, in an engine that old and with that level of wear (which is nevertheless newer than any car I’ve ever owned) you should probably be using heavier oil than the manufacturer recommends. This can result in regained compression and lower oil consumption in cases where the engine is not too far gone. In the summertime, while the weather is warm, you could try a 20W/50 oil and see if that helps.
DO NOT do this instead of having a mechanic check the car. Get a recommendation from the mechanic as to the weight of oil you should be using. Excessively heavy oil will not lubricate properly, especially at lower temperatures, so don’t use this trick unless you know what you are doing!

We had a ‘97 Dodge Neon that burned a lot of oil but it ran well enough. The trick is to have a couple bottles of oil with the car and keep the crankcase topped off. You will get used to the rate of consumption and should be able to keep up with it. With the motor worn that much you don’t have much to lose there’s probably other stuff wrong with the car by now to make cherrying it out a non starter anyway.

I wish to point out that my ‘85 Corolla with nearly 230K miles has crappy rings yet even it doesn’t go through oil nearly that fast. .

Also, the Saturn S-series has hydraulic lifters which use engine oil to adjust themselves to maintain proper valve clearance. Unfortunately, that also means that you can’t play the same games with oil viscosity that I can with my old-school solid-tappet Toyota. When my wife had her SW1, I noticed it didn’t react kindly to going up one grade.

That said, they normally tick for a few seconds on startup anyways, so I wouldn’t worry about that part of the engine. The rest of the engine though…. well, let’s jsut say that the S-series engine is not nearly as tolerant of abuse as a 4A-LC or a “Stovebolt Six”.