[Lafrad]

Ok. Started my car this morning, and a sound that I thought maybe I was just imagining before was very apparent. Bearing knock. now, after the car warmed a bit, I could no longer hear it at idle, but it becomes apparent if I lightly rev the engine to 3K or when I am accelerating and hit revs above 3/3.5K.
I bought this car after my Oldsmobile Calais broke down for the 6th time. I wanted a car that had minor maintence, meaning a newer ('96) and fuel injection (duh.. newer cars all most all injected, but whatever).
Bought the car off a smaller independant dealer last july. A/C didn't work right, he told me that they just had the A/C pump replaced, and didn't charge it yet (dumb me there, my fault for believeing that).
So I ended up replacing the evaporator in the car. okok... one repair, cost me $200 total because I did it myself. A/C now works great.
Replaced front struts, tie rod ends, and right front wheel bearing, when I got new tires. the tire shop said the car would chew through a set if I didn't do that.
Made new bushings as described for the front steering rack. the old rubber grommets were shot.
first month of school... (september/october)... water pump/idler pulley/timing belt combo... overheat on hiway, blew the head gasget too.
Halloween weekend, tranny died, when to limp mode, and all the seals were shot.
4 attempts later, the tranny place gets the repair done right.
Air bag light came on 3 weeks ago.. haven't gone in to get that looked at, ($60 just for a diagnoses on that sucker!!!!)
Gas mileage is in the shitter right now. getting under 20 on the hiway (280 miles for 15 gallons of gas)
This morning, bearings (mains or rod, I don't know which).

I have done nothing but treat this car well.
I have been doing oil changes with mobil 1/valvolene synthetic oil every 2-3K miles (I wanted to get whatever was in there before out of there, or the car was being repaired and it needed a more frequent change interval). I have replace the filters. before the tranny repair, I changed the Tranny fluid with MOPAR ATF+3 fluid and a genuine MOPAR filter. kept the tire pressure at a constant 35 PSI. always kept mid-grade or premium fuel in the tank. Greased all the fittings... blah blah...
Why do my cars all goto ****!?!?
I don't drive very hard (compared to my roomate, who has a '95 beretta.. he gives that car hell and the worst thing that happened is a heater core seal leak.. cost him $75 to fix that).
bah!

any comments/info would be appreciated.
thanks
lafrad

 

[adaptabl]

Been there, done that.

Do yourself a favour sell it and buy a BMW. Payments on the BMW will be cheaper than repair cost on the Intrepid.Intrepids are good looking cars but the reliablity stinks. My 98 thru a rod bearing at 80,000KM's.

Cheap parts break often. Ever wonder why there are soo many TSB's on DC products.

 

[JoeKD]

Do yourself a favour sell it and buy a BMW. Payments on the BMW will be cheaper than repair cost on the Intrepid.Intrepids are good looking cars but the reliablity stinks.

boy that's real good advice huh? If you don't own an Intrepid why are you still here?

sorry for the problems you are having, sounds like you have been doing everyhting right, maybe the last owner wasn't as nice to the car as you. This is the bad part of having a used car with 100+K miles, you never know what the last owner or owners did.

hopefully it turns out to be something small and easy to repair

 

[Lafrad]

hope it turns out too I really like the intrepid. Drives nice, has lots of power, good gas mileage (used to get).
I hate BMW's. I would drive an '80's VW rabbit before I turned the key on any BMW out there.
cars break. it is a common thing. they get used. I just wish mine didn't break as often as they did. <sigh>

 

[p3]

sorry for the problems you are having, sounds like you have been doing everyhting right, maybe the last owner wasn't as nice to the car as you. This is the bad part of having a used car with 100+K miles, you never know what the last owner or owners did.

Exactly what happened to me. I think the last owner beat the hell out of my car. I am easy on it and stuff still breaks. But like you said it's a used car with over 100k (well, 89k when I bought it). And as someone else said in a post somewhere else, if you buy a used car thinking you are going to have a perfect maintanece record you have a rude awakening coming.

 

[JoeKD]

if you buy a used car thinking you are going to have a perfect maintanece record you have a rude awakening coming.

so I shouldn't of believed the story about the old lady who only drove the car to church?

 

[Lafrad]

I know i konw.. used cars.. bleh... I am just frustrated with the troubles I am having.
couldn't something simple like a power window motor or cruise control break? not bearings..

ah well
Summer I guess i will yank the whole engine and carry on with the new crank/bearings. maybe I will rebuild the whole thing.. do it right... go .030" oversize on the pistons.. eek a little more performance and efficency out of this one... then at least I know I got another 100K out of it.

 

[Black94ES]

Yeah, I need a rebuild too, 3k - 4k canadian.

 

[Lafrad]

wow... fortunes are on my side I guess.. kinda. to check everything out, I dropped my oil pan, look around under there... take a look at the bearings. well, the rear main bearing..... one of the bolts was loose! (not like.,. finger loose, but it had 0 ft/lbs of torque on it when I went around with the torque wrench.)
so, I torq'd that bolt back to the correct torque, along with checking all the others I could...... and no more rattley noises
now I realize that it still IS a problem, because that came loose somehow... so I will still take a look at it.. maybe in the summer warmth.. (yea.. i was freezin doing that....)
Got a good oil in also. <phew>

 

[BobVila]

thats good news



-BobVila

 

[TsiArt01]

On my bros Concord , we replaced all the swaybar links , readjusted the stering rack , replace the lower control arms ( those were so worn out that they were barly holding the wheels in , oh and then i gat recall in mail , after i fixed that ) Trany went at 173K miles ( 60 miles from home looking for axles for that car oh and it did not goin limp mode , becouse as soon it shifet into 3rd the trany started to slip and no go ) After rebilding the trany the car runs fine .

Oh at the time we were fixing the trany , we toke the heads of becouse of head gasket went . We discovered that the exhoust valves were so pited that defenetly compration was low form that .

Crank position secror went ( what the car did was relly weird ) the car ran good as long you did not shut if off . as soon you did , forget about starting in unless you waight 1h to cool of.

corent problem that we are dealing with is the O2 secors don't work corectly ( they are bran new BOSH ) . ether left or rite does not work ( that's why the gas milage is like 15-20MPG ). Deler sead it's the catalick convertor that the exhoust stinks like gas ( what a dumb ass ) . Any one has a Canadian ECU for sale ?

I need to post the pics of my bros on my page , so you can see a monster K&N filter with a very short intake pipe ( the car does a lion nose at 3kRPM that dworfs the Honduh cold air intakes ).

 

[MoparHead]

Funny I just saw a brand new Beemer on the back of a tow truck.

Somehow, that doesn't sound like very solid advice: buy a BMW and pay more for everything.

But you shouldn't have to worry about it though, because Japanese cars and BMW's never break. You don't even have to change the oil. They are so reliable they do it themselves.