Scarlet - the 04 Red Aveo project

[gone.m]

Just had the timing belt done finally at 72000 miles. Who knows how close I was cutting it, I haven't looked at the old belt yet. It's a huge burden off my back having that done. I paid $170 including labor

Next up on the list, valve cover gasket, sparks, wheel bearing, front struts, synthetic oil change, ac delete

Guess I could post pics of the old belt if someone is that curious.

[thehunterooo]

$170 is a steal, though I bet the old belt and pulleys look good I assume?

[Daox]

That is a great deal on a timing belt replacement.

Why are you replacing all the other stuff though? Is it actually worn out and having problems? Valve cover gasket leaking? If not, I wouldn't replace it. I'd inspect the spark plugs before just replacing them. I'd only replace a bearing if it was making noise. I'd only do struts if your old ones are bad and you're getting a bouncy ride. Synthetic is good to run and you can run it longer than conventional oils. A/C delete I definitely wouldn't bother with. You save yourself 50 lbs, and you loose having it when you have to carry passengers (mom, dad, grandma, whatever). Its really not hurting performance or mileage with it on there.

[gone.m]

The timing belt looks ok, but hey, better safe than sorry


My valve cover is leaking, one of the first things I noticed when I bought it. I've since cleaned the engine compartment but here's a pic anyway:


I'm doing the sparks because its cheap and I want to get the engine running as well as possible so I'm doing a bunch of regular maintenance stuff all at once.The wheel bearing is bad. Mechanic used a stethoscope like tool to confirm.The struts aren't necessarily bad. I'm not planning to replace them, I think they just need to be re-installed correctly. Here's a pic of that:


The AC hasn't worked since I owned the car and I don't know why. The previous owner was very vague and didn't seem to know anything about cars. I'd rather just remove it than pay to fix it, and if I need to transport temperature sensitive passengers I'll drive our other car. If the AC can be fixed cheaply enough, I'll still remove it and sell it. It's only hot about 3 months out of the year in Michigan so I'm not losing much. Technically, it does marginally decrease mileage when in use, and even removing it might improve my MPG's. It adds weight plus strain on the serpentine so removal should make a slight improvement.Once the synthetic is in, my next fill up I'll drop in a fuel additive. It may or may not do anything at all, but it falls under the maintenance category and doesn't cost much to try.