How fucked am I?

So I noticed a coolant leak on my car (in case anyone's forgotten, it's the '02 Stratus with the 2.7 V6). I was driving to work and about a mile away from the office when it suddenly overheated for a minute and dropped back down. I noticed a leak around the area of the lower hose, but I didn't have much time to really check it over until I got it home and figured maybe a hose has cracked, though I just had a coolant flush done 6,000 miles ago and they said the hoses were fine. Upon further inspection, it looks like the leak is coming out of hole near some sort of engine inlet. It almost looks like there's a poor fitting there but I can't get a good look at it.

(view from just in front of the right-front tire, pointing at the left side of the car)


After checking some things out, it sounds like it could be a bad water pump or a bad seal. Apparently the pump is inside the engine and there's a drain hole that lets excess coolant pour out...that may be what I'm seeing. When the overheat happened, I cranked on the heater and got no heat at all until the temp dropped back down, so maybe nothing was getting pumped through the heater core at the time?

I'm going to run it to a shop tomorrow, and I'm just curious how much anal lube I should pick up after I drop it off?

That water pump is run off of the timing belt. And yeah, typically there are weep holes drilled in the part so that you know when it's shot. It looks like it could be that.

What was the coolant level when you noticed it leaking? Also, is it a drip type leak, or more of a pouring action?

Reason I ask is because when my '97 T-Bird ate it's composite intake manifold, coolant fucking poured out of that thing. Holy shit that was a mess.

Spinal wrote:That water pump is run off of the timing belt. And yeah, typically there are weep holes drilled in the part so that you know when it's shot. It looks like it could be that.

What was the coolant level when you noticed it leaking? Also, is it a drip type leak, or more of a pouring action?

Reason I ask is because when my '97 T-Bird ate it's composite intake manifold, coolant fucking poured out of that thing. Holy shit that was a mess.

I actually think this has been going on for a week as I noticed a nearly-dry puddle under the car last Wednesday, but it looked like it had been there longer than I'd actually been parked, I hadn't noticed any coolant smells lately, and I didn't see anything dripping from the car, so I thought maybe it was there from the car that had been there before me. When I noticed it was leaking today, the overflow bottle was at the "minimum cold" level before I went home, so it didn't look like a huge amount had been leaking over that time.

It's not pouring but it's definitely a steady drip.

From what you describe, it seems that the water pump has bought the farm.

I had the Miata's replaced when I did the 120000 mile timing belt change. Think that was 500+ bucks at the end of the day. But, I did have Madza factory parts used during the swap. Aftermarket probably would have been substantially cheaper. This was about 2 years ago.

I wish it could have either waited until next month or made itself known two weeks earlier. I spent most of this month's excess cash on a new set of tires that I really needed but could have waited a month longer on. I could think of a worse time for this to happen, but it's not very convenient at all.

Fffffffuuuuu....

I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS!

Well I was going to say that you are fucked BECAUSE you are driving a Dodge Stratus. But, the fact that you have a 2.7L V6 means you are really fucked and now you look like you have a bad water pump means you're super fucked.


Don't worry, we all get super fucked at some point.

the water pump requires pulling the engine to be changed? This is why dodge sucks.

VS wrote:the water pump requires pulling the engine to be changed? This is why dodge sucks.

I'm not sure the engine needs to be pulled, but it does need to be opened up to get to the pump. That is shitty.

Being super fucked sounds like maybe Superman will do it, and my colon will be obliterated after the first stroke.

honor m4n wrote:I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS!

You can't talk to me like that! I work too hard!

The car is dropped off...got a new Hyundai Sonata as a rental. Not a bad car, but the power is weird...push down about 1/3 of the way and you get almost nothing, then immediately past that you get drag racing speed.

Is it drive-by-wire? It might have that annoying adaptive throttle. My uncle's s500 was like that.

I don't think so. It's like it starts out in 3rd gear, then I push a touch more and it goes into the passing gear or something. I was spinning tires at half the intersections I stopped at.

Oh, and btw... 800 bucks.

And that's if nothing else got damaged by the pump

And usually something else will

Hi newer A/C compressor

I don't know if I said this before, but

holy ffffffffuck. 800???

fffffffffffuck

800? Christ, how much is labor these days?

We charge $105 an hour. I think our Chrysler stores are about the same.

when my car dies, i am not buying another one. fuck that.

just buy a festiva. you can probably trade your microwave for one.

Seriously, having a car is now a burden to me in NY. I move it twice a week for street cleaning. I drive it further than a 10th of a mile like once a month and a half.

sell it and get a bicycle. fixed gear, of course.

Public transit sucks around here given my shift. Getting a bus to work wouldn't be too bad, but getting one on the way home would be hell.

Got the car back. They said that pretty much everything else inside the engine was clean and the timing chain was still good, but there was a water outlet housing that needed to be replaced and a new set of gaskets put on the head cover and around the pump.

Final tally after all was said and done: $1,017.

hhhhhhholy fuck man

indeed.

how many miles are on your car?

Aristotle wrote:how many miles are on your car?

About 96,000.

could have been alot worse........

Has anyone here looked into that USFidelis shit where it's like health insurance for your car? If it is real, I was considering it, but I need another bill like I need a second asshole.

JaysonAych wrote:

Aristotle wrote:how many miles are on your car?

About 96,000.

that's not very much. i don't like this one bit.

SBF wrote:Has anyone here looked into that USFidelis shit where it's like health insurance for your car? If it is real, I was considering it, but I need another bill like I need a second asshole.

i haven't. i suspect it's a real thing, but i also suspect that there's a LOT of fine print that would basically end up fucking you in your second asshole.

Aristotle wrote:

JaysonAych wrote:

Aristotle wrote:how many miles are on your car?

About 96,000.

that's not very much. i don't like this one bit.

seems like a thing these days.... my mate had a vw bora with 152k km, driving along the highway at 120kmh, cruise control, and all of the sudden his crankshaft or something snapped and blew a hole in the engine.... roughly similar mileage

they just don't build them like they used to.

The 2.7 is a shit motor. Always was, always will be.

Aristotle wrote:they just don't build them like they used to.

I dunno...every car I've ever had started having problems once they got around 100,000 miles.

We'll see how this goes, but if something else big goes out, I'll start looking into trading it off. But this is the first major problem the car has had, and I'm loathe to get rid of it.

SBF wrote:Has anyone here looked into that USFidelis shit where it's like health insurance for your car? If it is real, I was considering it, but I need another bill like I need a second asshole.

let me put it this way, they had to change their name to US Fidelis because they had so many pending lawsuits...

lllllol

JaysonAych wrote:

Aristotle wrote:they just don't build them like they used to.

I dunno...every car I've ever had started having problems once they got around 100,000 miles.

We'll see how this goes, but if something else big goes out, I'll start looking into trading it off. But this is the first major problem the car has had, and I'm loathe to get rid of it.

you need a nissan that starts giving you trouble @ 11k.

I've had too many cars that gave me trouble as soon as I got them. Somehow, I think this is better.