I took it up to Mitsubishi after a transmission shop told me they thought it was the oil sending unit. Once at Mitsubishi they found it was the head gasket and showed me the oil leaking from where the seal is. I don't see oil in coolant or coolant in the oil, it is just leaking to the outside of the engine. I imagine this is just a slow leak, but I am getting it fixed tomorrow. You all can tell me how bad I am getting ripped off or something lol. I am going to get the head gasket, timing belt, and water pump replaced for $919. This also includes an oil change, coolant flush, and the new coolant. Since I am in the military they are giving me the parts at wholesale and about $100 off of the labor. The parts alone at wholesale are over $400 so I don't see it as being that bad being a 7.9 hour job. I believe this to be because of my stupid thought of oh lets try synthetic...I have changed the valve cover and cam position sensor seal because of that so this may be the cause of this gasket yet too. I switched back to synthetic blend by the way lol. Car has 89,500 miles on it by the way and it is a 1998 Eclipse RS. Car runs good and I just put a new clutch, brake pads and rotors(in the front), tune-up, and other stuff I'm sure. It is worth fixing it right? Hope so cause tomorrow morning I am bringing it in. I understand many people would say do it yourself but not only do I not even want to try but really don't have the time. Coming from the dealer this isn't that bad of a price is it?

Thats a good price IMO as long as they do it right. Don't take delivery of the car if there are any squeaks or weird idle problems when you go to pick it up. Make sure its running perfectly.

I wonder if he should mention to the tech to grind down that rear head bolt so it doesn't leak again? Or should he just keep quiet and do it himself after the fact?

Sounds like you got a decent price. I was quoted $1100 for all that here in Phoenix about 2 years ago. Of course, I decided that money would be better spent on a rebuild, so...

Good luck with it. Just make sure they don't "forget" anything. My parents had the HG replaced under a recall on their Neon, which was no leaking and ran perfectly, and it's been an unreliable POS ever since.

Your not gettin the parts at wholesale if its all costing you $400 for parts. My brother is the parts manager at the local satan here. I just picked up all my timing belt and water pump parts for $181, headgasket for OEM mls was $35, and oil and coolant doesnt cost that much. I get parts for 10% over cost from him and I dont pay labor at all if I have my car fixed at the dealership. Your getting the parts cheaper than most people, but your not getting them at wholesale.

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The end of the internet begins here... www.broke-off.com

Either way, if you are not willing to take the time to do it yourself you are getting a fair quote IMO. I'm sure they will do a fine job. It's a tedious job, but it's not super hard. Timing the car is probably the worst part.

1999 Eclipse GST 4G63

-Roman

Well here are the prices.

Head gasket set(included a new valve cover seal and who knows what else)
$174.33 I got it for $148.18

Filter $14.83 I got it for $12.61

Timing belt $117.45 I got it for $99.83

Water Pump $125.47 I got it for $106.65
Water Pump gasket $8.75 I got it for $7.44

Either way I got it cheaper than what they sell...plus knocked off labor, and I think it was more than just $100. The guy said we took a hit on this one, but they don't care cause the owner's son is in the military too. I could of swore I saw him calculate it to over $1,700 and then I still got charged $919.41. I saved about $75 on parts. Didn't mention anything about the bolt thing but the mechanic is awesome. Would I know if I had this bolt problem soon or does it happen over a long period of time? Guy knows so much and I was told about someone betting him that he couldn't pull a tranny in under an hour. He did it in 57 minutes. I probably sound rediculous, but I think I got a really good deal. I got all the old parts, the water pump don't look bad and the bearing or whatever still spins good. The tensioner and pulley's were still good so they didn't change them. The service guy said if they were to go bad within warranty he wouldn't charge me labor to fix them so thats cool. Either way it is all done and paid for. I am happy the junker is fixed...but for how long until something else goes.

I'll keep my fingers crossed

Thanks,
Jared

Jesus.. wish someone would pay me $900 to do that.

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If a sentence found online has 35% misspellings or greater and includes at least two racially charged expletives, chances are it is a YouTube comment.

'95 Eclipse TurboGS (garage deco)
'95 TSi AWD (restoring a survivor)
'97 Talon ESi-T (poor impulse control)
'99 Eclipse RS-T (daily beater)
'13 Evo X (mostly stock)
'17 Sienna (Middle Aged Dad Mobile)



Factory Service Manuals: http://nawdu.de/files/

Yeah, I got the water pump, timing belt, all the gaskets, new tensioner pulleys, the WORKS! for a grand total of $250 in parts... As a matter of fact, I just rebuilt a head from the junk yard and it's going on tomorrow, everything is already torn down...

BTW, you could do what I did. My head gasket started leaking at about 60k miles. I went to Mitsubishi and they said they would fix under warranty it if there was a service bulletin out on it.. had them look at it, they confirmed it then wanted $1,100. I told them where to stick it and they told me I needed to pay $70 to get my car back.

Then I wrote a long letter to Mitsu explaining how if the car was made reasonably durable this would not need to be done and how Dodge warranties their Neon's head gasket past the standard warranty. After a good bit of arguing I also found out they had a class action lawsuit against them for the exact same thing.

In the end, after 3 weeks of arguing, I got everything done for free and they extended my warranty to 100k miles bumper to bumper...


Now, after I take a look at it for the first time, getting around to start building everything up for a turbo setup, I see they put my exhaust gasket on upside down... oh yeah and the timing belt cover, that back portion wasn't tightened all the way down towards the crank pulley so the crank pulley was rubbing, melted all the plastic and it fused all up in some of the pulleys... strange I could hear anything... So yeah, don't have faith in the dealership to do anything right...

Good luck!

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96 Black ESi
91 Red TSI AWD (RIP)
02 WRX


"turnin wrenches for nine hours in the pouring rain, just to get the beast up and running again"

Aerospace Certified TIG welder for Precision Castparts in Portland, OR.

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