Advice for a old new car.
 

Hey guys,

I just bought a 1996 LX with 176,500 miles on it. I took it to a mechanic who did a inspection of it, and he listed these things as things I should do/fix in the order I should do them:

1. Fuel system cleaning. (He said I should do this before anything)
2. Timing belt and water pump, all the seals.
3. Transmission service (I think he ment just the fluid)
4. spark plugs, wires, distributor
5. tire rotation

He quoted $500 for the timing belt and water pump (with parts) and about $70 each for the other things.

I am really strapped for cash, and I kinda need to run this car for a couple of years until I finish college. I'd love to add to this car (I/H/E) and mods but have to make it last until I get a decent job.I understand how important the timing belt is (lose it and lose the engine)somy questions are, how accurate are the estimates, andwhats the chance ill lose the timing belt?

Sorry to bother you guys over something so trivial, butany help/advice will be much appriciated, and thank you for reading the post.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

1 - If there's no specific problem with the way it runs, just buy a bottle of Techron or Seafoam & put it in the gas tank.

2 - Timing belt should go every 90k miles. Did you get any service records? If you can REALLY show the timing belt was replaced late, like at 100k or 120k miles, then you can relax a bit. $500 for this is somewhere kinda reasonable.

3, 4, 5 - Do you want some help about how to do those things yourself?? They're not that difficult.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

Sorry, I guess looking back my post was a bit hazy. I guess I am asking what all I need to do (preventive maintaince)to make sure my car is running in the next 6 months or so until I have money to spend on making it run perfect.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

The first thing I would do is find out about the timing belt, also, make sure that the $500.00 he quoted includes water pump and seal replacement. A bad timing belt will make you SOL, Second, Sea foam, there is a DIY writeup in our DIY seciton. Third: Plugs (NGK only), wires, dist, cap and rotor, then from there you could clean your throttle body and EGR ports (those two things will cost almost nothing except your labor, write-ups available on those as well), Then check your belts and make sure that they are in good shape, check your coolant and make sure that it's still good (bad coolant eats through stuff...

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

Thanks alot guys. Guess all I needed was a kick in *** to go ahead and the timing belt repaired. And now to bug the DIY peoples to figure out what I need to get in terms of basic tool sets. I walked around sears for about an hour in a daze. The sales rep started at a 53 piece set and ended up at a 200 piece set, at which point I decided to run. :)

Thanks again to the both of yah.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

My suggestion would be to go to a pawn shop. I got a 100+ piece tool set with all the deep wells, two socket wrenchs a few open end wrenchs in both metric and standard for $25.00. The pieces you'll want the most are your basic socket wrenchs (having two sizes a small 1/4" drive and a 3/8" drive is nice) a full set of metric sockets, deep well (the tall ones) and standard are nice to have, and a set of open ended "box" wrenchs and a spark plug socket, buy a set or piece a set together from a pawn shop, pick-up some jack stands if they have them as well.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

Cool. Never would have thought of a pawn shop. I was poking around craigslist/classifieds but will go check that out.
Thanks

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

[sm=roll.gif]

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

OMG, a visit from smaglik the troll ^^

So, would I be a complete retard if I attempted to replace the timing belt/balancer belt/water pump by myself as my first automotive project/DIY ever? I went to advance autoparts and all the parts add up to $170 (2 tensioners, 2 belts, water pump by Dayco). Although if mechanics feel ok with charging $300 in labour it might be a little too much for a complete newb.

Edit: The devil on my shoulder is very convincing about $300 invested in tools.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

very true. you'd get more use out of the tools.

i think its a doable DIY....although if this is your daily driver...it might help if you can go without a car for a couple of days...you may not get it done as quickly as you'd like.

Troll? I think a troll is when you linger around and dont post. I am a post whore. :)

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

Hmm, well, I have been reading alot of the DIY stuff, and after reading all the faqs, its looks like I should be replacing alot more then I though at first, almost at $300. Am I missing anything?


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RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

You've never changed oil, never did any work on your car?

I think a timing belt is not such a good thing as your FIRST project. Too big of ajob with too serious consequences. If you really want to, I'd suggest finding a friend who works on carsand doing yours together.

At the very least, get a repair manual & read thru the timing belt procedure so you get a good idea of what you're in for.
Haynes or Chilton book is cheapfrom most carparts stores. The VERY BEST repair book is from www.helminc.com but $$$. Sometimes you can find them at a public library.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

I have been tinkering with cars since I was 16 with my dad (who learned a lot about engines in the Army.) I try to do most things myself but I did not have the cajones to do the t-belt. You have to really know what you are doing. If you don't do it right you could find yourself in a world of hurt. $500 is about what I paid for mine at a Honda Certified shop that had a master tech and a few other techs with 20+ years of experience working there. That was for my 4cyl. I had a long time family friend mechanic(not a Honda Tech) do my t-belt, h2o pump, drive belts, & seals on my V6. I bought all the parts (Genuine Honda parts from a dealership)and brought them to him. He quoted $300, but tried to only charge me $200. I paid him the $300 he quoted me anyways. He did a great job, when my dad went to pick up the car he said "I've done a lot of t-belts on 4cyl cars but this was my first time to do it on a 6. I learned something today!"
My advice is: either find a friend who is good working on cars that agrees they can do it, or pay the $500 (if it includes t-belt, h2o pump, drive belts, & seals.)
#'s 1, 3,4,& 5 would all be things you should do yourself if you want to start doing your own car work. Buy a Haynes manual at Auto Zone ($15)for the general maintenance issues such as these. While you are at AutoZone, go ahead and pick up a cheap beam-type torque wrench (I got mine for $10 - beam types are accurate) so you can torque your spark plugs to spec. Also buy a spark plug socket (5/8 I believe) $5.
You will need metric and standard open end and socket wrenches. Do as sir_nasty said and check out pawn shops. AutoZone sells these wrenches too I believe. As you work on your car you will find many of the bolts use the 10mm wrench, so always keep that one handy;)

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

Thanks alot guys. I also had a talk with the guy at advanced auto parts (advace/ autozone? seems like a best buy/circuit city situation to me) and he basically gave me lots of horror stories of belt changes gone wrong that he has seen personally at the store.

I have a Haynes manual now and I'll work through getting all the small things in it done and build up experience so that I can attempt the next belt change I come up against.

Thanks again, you guys have been awesome.

Jim: I am originally fromTanzania. Its the exact opposite situation where labour is dirt cheap but parts are very expensive since they have to be import to order. I guess its only recently I got interested in working on my car myself.

I heard the helm books were geared towards mechanics and harder to follow for beginners then the chilton/Haynes books.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

The Helm book is much more thorough & complete. But it includes real detailed instructions for the stuff that most home mechanics would never touch. For example completely overhauling an automatic transmission.

No home mechanic is gonna buy a $20,000 refrigerant recovery system to work on his own airconditioner once in his lifetime. But the Helm book has instructions about doing that.

But it's stillpretty easy to follow.

The real problem is occasionally the Haynes or Chilton books are a little vague or incomplete, even for things that are reasonable for home mechanics to be doing.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

I'll skip on the helm for now. I'd invest in it if I was attemping something major on the engine, but I think the worst i'll be doing tomy accordis adding a cheapo SRI from ebay.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

The best thing is whateveryou plan on doing, read thru the instructions first, & make sure you understand them. BEFORE you start. You'll quickly get to understand what kinds of jobs you want to do yourself.

I've seen lots of posts about timing belts where they need help tounderstand what they're looking at so they can synchronize the different sprockets properly. The time to ask those questions is before youtake your engine apart.

RE: Advice for a old new car.
 

best thing to do is buy a manual of your car on any autopart you can find, read about the stuuf you gon change read and read it over come to the forum ask questions as many as you need to figure it out i know theres a lot of people that has changed their timing belt and do it yourself and get that extra money and put some mods into it ;)