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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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...

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

[sm=roll.gif]

 

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.

 

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 *****.