Any other problems?

[Kae]

HI everyone,

Looking for opinions from others who have worked with a lot of cars.

In Septemebr of last year I bought a 2001 mitsubishi eclipse.

From September 2015 to now, I’ve had:
– a broken water pump and hose
– a bad starter,
– fried ac clutch bearing (this nixed ac running completely and required removal of power steering belt since I couldn’t afford to replace whole ac unit),
– cracked upper and lower radiator hoses, and now
– possible sensor or spark plug issues (car’s sputtering like it wants to stall)

Also, when the car was sold to us, I was told the heater core needs to be replaced as well. I purchased a new heater core but haven’t had it installed yet.

The guy that sold this car claimed he had done a thorough inspection and replaced/rebuilt a lot of parts, but with all these problems I’m finding this hard to believe.

Given all the above, are there other problem areas that I need to look out for if I decide to keep the car? Right now it seems very much like a money pit and I badly want to sell it, but don’t have any viable options to get another car anytime soon if I do.

Any insight is appreciated, thanks

Topic

[Its me]

Two important resources can be time and money. With those, almost anything is possible.

Sorry to hear about your issues. Sometimes it seems that you can end up chasing things on an older car and it becomes a time and money sucker.

I had an eagle talon and it was a belt on interference engine. When it broke at 17k miles all hell broke loose and it was in the shop (it was under warranty) for 2 weeks. I would check to see if/when it has a timing belt, and the last time it was changed.

If you have the time and know how, and tools… and this is a secondary mode of transportation you can tackle this relatively easily. With time you can get more money later… If it is your primary mode of transportation, then it is a pain…. All relative.

I sometimes say that when I was young, I had all of the time and none of the tools, now I have the tools and none of the time….

Good luck

-Karl

[Corey Mason]

Biggest thing we need to know is the mileage.

And I’d guess it has at least 160k miles.

The next biggest thing you need to check out is the timing belt. If that goes your entire engine is toast, if it’s an interference engine (which I’m pretty sure it is). If it runs on a chain, you’re fine, but I think it’s a belt.

That’s the biggest thing to check.

All the other things are pretty common and shows age. I replace water pumps on every car I’ve ever owned just because they tend to always go on older cars.

Another thing could be ball joints. I’d check those, because if those are extremely bad, they can lead to catastrophic failure and be unsafe.

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[Author]

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