The Eclipse is Broke,
 

The girlfriend had to make the 2.5 hour drive back home this morning for work. Our parents live in Texarkana, TX, we live in Conway, AR for school. Im in Texarkana for the holidays. At about 11:30am she is about ten minutes from Conway when she calls me and tells me the Eclipse broke down, smoke is pouring out of the engine bay, leaking fluids, and won't start. FML, so she is 2.5 hours away, and guess who gets to go inspect the damage. Me. I ride with her Mom and bring my tools and jack. Her uncle drive his car up there also to leave with her in case we can't get it fixed, nice that he has a company vehicle. Also, I stayed out till 3am the night before and this morning probably wasn't the best one to pick to get me to come fix shit.

I call a friend in Conway and ask him to go pick up Amanda so she isn't on the side of the road. We make the 2.5 hour drive, the car is on the side of I-40, radiator is busted, I suspect the car had got too hot, and who the hell knows what's wrong with it now. It won't turn over. Some freelance road-side assitance fellow tries to help, but he doesn't. So with it being about 4 pm, we call a tow truck and have to take it to a shop. We leave Conway at about 7pm get back to Texarkana a little before 10pm. And the headace I woke up with is still going strong. That's how I spent my Sunday. Over six hours on the road, another good bit waiting on a tow truck and trying to fix the car in nearly freezing temp.

Hopefully the damage to the car isn't too serious, but at this point its relative on the fact that it might need to be fully rebuilt.

Sucks man. I hate Mitsubishi. I had an eclipse. Fail!

IF she kept driving it with the temp warning light on causing engine seizure...well... Id dump her..lol.

This is why we have Roadside Assistance on our insurance. and her warranty too. See ya when ya get home honey. I'll have supper ready.. ;)

that's why Diamond star motors sucks. :D


old eclipses suck.

Just found out that the engine has no compression. $2200 for a used engine along with other repairs. I don't want to blame her for driving the car when it was getting hot, she said as soon as she realized something was wrong she pulled over, but I think she realized too late. I asked her if she ever saw the temp. gauge go up, I bet she couldn't even point to the right gauge. I had a feeling that this is what was going to happen, the worst case. When I worked as mechinist and rebuilding engines, I worked on several that had just gotten too hot. Crazy stuff you'd see in a FUBAR'd engine.

So, used engine for $2200 and get it back running, or should I pursue another option? They have a lifted Jeep (would need minor work) that they took away from her brother that she could have.

Trade HER in for a new one. Honestly, I dont see how any human being that can drive a car, cant notice a temp warning light.

I almost guarantee you that in her mind, she thought she could make it home.

Of course that would mean she is lying to you now...and im not gonna start shit like that.

You gotta think about how quick it happened though. The radiator busted. I tried pouring coolant in it and it would leak out as fast as I was pouring it in. So with the coolant gone as fast as it could pump it probably, and driving down the interstate at 3K rpm, I bet it wouldn't take but a minute or two to warp the head and fuck stuff up real good. She said she noticed the heater quick working (due to the coolant), and then it started to make a noise. And she pulled over before it compleatly went ape shit, but then it wouldn't start after it cooled down. Who is to say any warning light came on, granted she may not have looked, but if your car is fucking up who doesn't look at the gauges? She doesn't know how to fix a car, but she knows that if something is wrong she needs to stop driving and call me.

DSM sucks then. Most cars can survive for more than 2 min without coolant...hell ive personally seen more than one car go for a drive around the block (8 minutes or so) with no OIL...yep, no OIL. And no damage resulted.

anyhoo...sucks about the Eclipse. It is what it is at this point. Hopefully you dont really have to shell out $2200 to fix it. Id get rid of that car before I'd spend that kind of $ on it.

It's been a pretty good car. It's a '02 (does that make it a DSM?), I've gotten 40.5 mpg in it once from Texarkana to Conway. I too would rather her have a different car. She wants a different car too. But the car isn't worth much the way it sits and buying a different car, one she would want, is going to cost more than fixing this one.

It's not a dsm but sorry to here it. Forget about the car tho just think of it this way, that's 2200 that you could put in the jeep :)

Whos car is this? Yours or hers? I hope its not yours, if so I bet you are just going to let her get away with this right?

Yeah seriously, you are deluding yourself if you think she didnt know something was wrong earlier then she let on. Its going to take a good few minutes for the engine to totally crap out from overheating like that.

It's her car. The fact is, she didn't realize something was wrong till it was too late, nothing can be changed about that. From what I've asked her, she didn't drive for long knowing something was wrong with the car. She said as soon as it started making noise she pulled over, it probably didn't start making noise till it was already too late. She said that no dash light came on. GDP, I think it's rude and presumptuous that you think my girlfriend of eight years would lie to me about knowing or not knowing that something was wrong with the car. The car is getting a used engine put in, 60K miles. The old engine had 90K miles so if this engine was taken care of then it should be good. I told them to have a new timing belt put on. I want to keep the old engine to disassemble and inspect.

Yeah maybe it was rude ..... I was in a sour mood this morning but regardless ....

I dont see how she could not have known. If the radiator blew from whatever reason, she should have seen a bunch of smoke. And at that point there would be really no damage to the motor. Now I guess the alaby for that would be if the leak was at the bottom of the radiator and it just spilled onto the ground without hitting the engine and being burned.

Im just saying I could see a bad judgement call and being too scared to admit not pulling over right away. Or who knows, woman tend to not pay attention to anything other then gas gauge. So maybe she really didnt notice anything.

I will say that I would deffinately notice more often than not.

The leak actually was at the bottom of the radiator. I tried pouring in some fluid and it poured out as fast as I poured it in. I know she doesn't pay as close attention as most of us would, so that's a strike. And I suspect she had the radio turned up and didn't hear anything little, so that's a strike also. She probably just didn't realize anything till something obvious happened. I'll just have to tell her to be a little more mindful and observant of the car. Its actually hard for me to drive if I can't hear the car. I shift by the sound of the engine, I steer by the sound of the tires. It takes all the senses to really drive.

Yeah I could see in those particular set of circumstances then, she did not know till it was too late.

i have heard that generally when the cost to repair is greater than the value of the vehicle, it may be time to move on. Unless you are unwilling to give up on it

The car is worth over twice the cost of the repair, even according to KBB. Eclipses are slow and ugly, but actually hold a decent value for being a pretty basic car and for it's age. The thing is, the car isn't worth anything without an engine, and to buy a car that she would want would cost a lot more than fixing this one. So we'd be out even more money by not fixing it.

i love my junkyards here, tons of parts. we wrecked my friends 5.0 and it lasted 8 miles on curvy ky roads till it eventually locked up and overheated majorly. Let it sit for 3 hours started it up drove it home put coolant in it. 2 weeks later blowed the headgasket. heat destroys all,, even our own bodies.