From: Vic Smith on
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:37:52 -0400, Hachiroku ???? <Trueno(a)e86.GTS>
wrote:

>On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:33:36 -0500, Vic Smith wrote:
>
>> Now I just have to decide if I keep the $160 diff for myself or pass the
>> savings to my daughter.
>> Just kidding (-:
>
>ROFL. That will teach her for buying a Mitsu!!!
>
>They are cool cars, but not reknown for their reliability!
>
>(or their ability to keep the valves from crunching in the event of a
>timing belt failure! ;) )
>
>A few years ago, Mitsu almost went down the tubes because of problems with
>their cars, but mostly with their medium-sized trucks!
>
>I would STILL buy a 3000GT if I could find one cheap enough...
>

There was an earlier Eclipse gen that was much worse than the gen my
daughter has. A co-worker had one and warned me off the earlier gen
and I did some study before my daughter bought hers.
I like the wicked looks of the 3000GT. Not my type car though.
I have 7 kids and basically gave each $2500 upon HS graduation for
their first car.
After that they were on their own for insurance and upkeep, except one
son and I did much of their labor.
Six were just happy to have a free car, even if was an old Corsica,
Grand Am, or Cutlass costing $1800-3500.
As you can see, I'm not wealthy or even very generous.
Biggest reason for making sure they had a car is so they could get to
work or school and eventually out of my hair. And it worked.
I do love them, even if I don't miss having them at home that much (-:
But this daughter HAD to have the Eclipse. She resisted buying any
car I suggested, and I let her drive my "extra" Berreta to work and
college as long as she picked up the insurance and maintenance costs.
I thought she would give up on wanting an Eclipse.
After about a year of whining and fighting with me and the wife WE
gave up and co-signed the Eclipse loan. Little miss fancy pants won.
It's a 2001 and had about 25k miles on it in early 2003 when she
bought it. Cost about $15k but the note was about $10k after my $2500
and money she had saved.
She paid the 5 year note off in 2 1/2 years.
I'm glad we gave in, because she's been happy with the car since.
Except when her trans needed $3k of work. Or when her harmonic
balancer cost her a few hundred. And she wasn't happy to pay about 6
hundred recently for a new timing belt and water pump which I insisted
she get done because the car has near 100k miles now.
Anyway my son will only do mostly simple work like brakes and tune-ups
on the Eclipse because he doesn't like it.
Outside of work he's pure GM car/Ford truck and basically hates all
other brands.
Sometimes I have to tell him to just shut up when he goes on a rant
about Mitsu or Chryco. He knows quite a bit about many brands because
he wrenches them all day. But when he repeats the same rant I tell
him I already heard that, so lets get back to work.
I can understand the Chryco stuff since his girlfriend's Stratus
burned to the ground after he did a lot of work on it.
He was driving it and it burst into flames when a PS hose or fitting
came loose. Something he had never touched.
Never had that happen to me, watching your ride burn to the ground
on a busy street while you wait for the fire trucks.
Probably very embarrassing to somebody who knows his cars well and
takes pride in keeping them in near perfect condition.
Two weeks after the blackened hulk was crushed they got a recall
notice from Chrysler about fire danger from PS hoses coming loose.
So I understand why he's pissed off at Chrysler.
He'll do the Eclipse o2 sensors, but wouldn't touch her balancer or
timing belt so she had to go to a dealer.
Just won't dig into the car much. He'll do some suspension work for
her that he says the car needs, but he's a pro suspension guy anyway
and works all brands.
Maybe he doesn't like the Eclipse because he's just jealous that his
sister spent so much for a car. That's what I think. And he likes to
fight with her and needle her.
Anyway the car still looks good and everything works and she's still
happy with it, so all is well. It never stranded her.
I'm glad we gave in and co-signed the note. Took me a while to come
to that. In terms of repair, it's needed less that the GM's, but the
repairs were much more costly and the car has more down time.
With the GM's it's always nickle-dime stuff.
If you jump on it there's no pain. But that's just my experience.
Aside from the trans and balancer and the cost of the timing belt/pump
the Eclipse has been good. No nickel diming.
When it asks for some cash, it doesn't play around.
Keep in mind we caught the balancer early and got it right to the
dealer before the crank key got screwed..
Only other thing it needs that I consider a defect is a headlight
socket. The left side is dim and my son says the sockets are known to
corrode/melt.
We'll put new sockets in both sides soon.
I guess some chicks just need their chick car.
I never even drove the car except to move it to the street or garage.
And nobody ever wants to borrow it from her either.
Hey. Maybe she's smarter than I thought.

--Vic
From: Nate Nagel on
On 06/16/2010 06:33 PM, Vic Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:37:52 -0400, Hachiroku ????<Trueno(a)e86.GTS>
> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:33:36 -0500, Vic Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Now I just have to decide if I keep the $160 diff for myself or pass the
>>> savings to my daughter.
>>> Just kidding (-:
>>
>> ROFL. That will teach her for buying a Mitsu!!!
>>
>> They are cool cars, but not reknown for their reliability!
>>
>> (or their ability to keep the valves from crunching in the event of a
>> timing belt failure! ;) )
>>
>> A few years ago, Mitsu almost went down the tubes because of problems with
>> their cars, but mostly with their medium-sized trucks!
>>
>> I would STILL buy a 3000GT if I could find one cheap enough...
>>
>
> There was an earlier Eclipse gen that was much worse than the gen my
> daughter has. A co-worker had one and warned me off the earlier gen
> and I did some study before my daughter bought hers.
> I like the wicked looks of the 3000GT. Not my type car though.
> I have 7 kids and basically gave each $2500 upon HS graduation for
> their first car.
> After that they were on their own for insurance and upkeep, except one
> son and I did much of their labor.
> Six were just happy to have a free car, even if was an old Corsica,
> Grand Am, or Cutlass costing $1800-3500.
> As you can see, I'm not wealthy or even very generous.
> Biggest reason for making sure they had a car is so they could get to
> work or school and eventually out of my hair. And it worked.
> I do love them, even if I don't miss having them at home that much (-:
> But this daughter HAD to have the Eclipse. She resisted buying any
> car I suggested, and I let her drive my "extra" Berreta to work and
> college as long as she picked up the insurance and maintenance costs.
> I thought she would give up on wanting an Eclipse.
> After about a year of whining and fighting with me and the wife WE
> gave up and co-signed the Eclipse loan. Little miss fancy pants won.
> It's a 2001 and had about 25k miles on it in early 2003 when she
> bought it. Cost about $15k but the note was about $10k after my $2500
> and money she had saved.
> She paid the 5 year note off in 2 1/2 years.
> I'm glad we gave in, because she's been happy with the car since.
> Except when her trans needed $3k of work. Or when her harmonic
> balancer cost her a few hundred. And she wasn't happy to pay about 6
> hundred recently for a new timing belt and water pump which I insisted
> she get done because the car has near 100k miles now.
> Anyway my son will only do mostly simple work like brakes and tune-ups
> on the Eclipse because he doesn't like it.
> Outside of work he's pure GM car/Ford truck and basically hates all
> other brands.
> Sometimes I have to tell him to just shut up when he goes on a rant
> about Mitsu or Chryco. He knows quite a bit about many brands because
> he wrenches them all day. But when he repeats the same rant I tell
> him I already heard that, so lets get back to work.
> I can understand the Chryco stuff since his girlfriend's Stratus
> burned to the ground after he did a lot of work on it.
> He was driving it and it burst into flames when a PS hose or fitting
> came loose. Something he had never touched.
> Never had that happen to me, watching your ride burn to the ground
> on a busy street while you wait for the fire trucks.
> Probably very embarrassing to somebody who knows his cars well and
> takes pride in keeping them in near perfect condition.
> Two weeks after the blackened hulk was crushed they got a recall
> notice from Chrysler about fire danger from PS hoses coming loose.
> So I understand why he's pissed off at Chrysler.
> He'll do the Eclipse o2 sensors, but wouldn't touch her balancer or
> timing belt so she had to go to a dealer.
> Just won't dig into the car much. He'll do some suspension work for
> her that he says the car needs, but he's a pro suspension guy anyway
> and works all brands.
> Maybe he doesn't like the Eclipse because he's just jealous that his
> sister spent so much for a car. That's what I think. And he likes to
> fight with her and needle her.
> Anyway the car still looks good and everything works and she's still
> happy with it, so all is well. It never stranded her.
> I'm glad we gave in and co-signed the note. Took me a while to come
> to that. In terms of repair, it's needed less that the GM's, but the
> repairs were much more costly and the car has more down time.
> With the GM's it's always nickle-dime stuff.
> If you jump on it there's no pain. But that's just my experience.
> Aside from the trans and balancer and the cost of the timing belt/pump
> the Eclipse has been good. No nickel diming.
> When it asks for some cash, it doesn't play around.
> Keep in mind we caught the balancer early and got it right to the
> dealer before the crank key got screwed..
> Only other thing it needs that I consider a defect is a headlight
> socket. The left side is dim and my son says the sockets are known to
> corrode/melt.
> We'll put new sockets in both sides soon.
> I guess some chicks just need their chick car.
> I never even drove the car except to move it to the street or garage.
> And nobody ever wants to borrow it from her either.
> Hey. Maybe she's smarter than I thought.
>
> --Vic

Couldn't talk her into a Miata, huh? your son might be less resistant
to working on that because it looks like a scale model of a "real" car
underneath and the drive wheels are at the right end...

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel
From: Vic Smith on
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:37:10 -0400, Nate Nagel <njnagel(a)roosters.net>
wrote:


>
>Couldn't talk her into a Miata, huh? your son might be less resistant
>to working on that because it looks like a scale model of a "real" car
>underneath and the drive wheels are at the right end...
>

Never even came up. Nor the Del Sol (sp?) which might fit the
category. Eclipse is all she ever wanted from the get go.
I would only push her to GM cars I know, because...that's all I know,
and had no problem telling her me and kid could wrench it.
Just wouldn't leave my comfort zone, so she didn't get much choice
from me. Her comfort zone was the Eclipse, and she was willing to pay
for that. She has, but she's still happy with it.
Just a completely different car philosophy than mine.
I think the Sunfire is a chick car, but I never heard anything good
about it, and too much bad, so it never came up.
Wouldn't matter anyway. She just wanted an Eclipse.
I'm not sure exactly how that "eye appeal" thing works with cars.
Looking at a woman, I understand how eye appeal can overrule common
sense - it has (-: - but not with a car.
Sure, some cars look better to me than others, but I always let the
"fix it" side of me make the final decision.
Maybe if I was drunk at 2 AM and the only car in the bar was an
Eclipse I would hit on her. Nah. (-:

--Vic

From: cuhulin on
I think some of those older models/Mitsubishi cars look pretty snazzy.
cuhulin

From: ben91932 on
On Jun 15, 8:33 pm, Vic Smith <thismailautodele...(a)comcast.net> wrote:

> When we got around to the Eclipse the kid found 4 sensors on it and we
> were basically lost until I plugged the codes into google.  Turned out
> the 3 codes were really for the left and right downstream sensors.

With no intention of sounding preachy or patronizing, I sure hope that
the 02's are the problem.
The downstream 02's are there to measure catalytic converter
efficiency.. so if the cats are compromised the 02's wont help.
When chasing those codes, I always check the cats with an infrared no-
touchy thermometer... after running for 3 minutes at 2000 rpm
the outlet of the cat should be at least 75 degrees hotter than the
outlet.
Hope this helps
Ben