Apples

I'm at 92k miles and was told I need a new timing belt and water pump. I did a price quote on this and the guy told me I should need a valve and spark plug replacement as well. I was quoted at $1600 for all of this. Is this a reasonable price? What kind of mechanic should I trust?

Chad05TL

That is the million dollar question.. "Who can you trust". I would give 1k for the timing belt & water pump job if they were trust worthy... and ASE certified is better than not certified. As far as valves and valve seals, I am not aware of it being on the regularly scheduled maintenance plan.. So I posed that very question to eric the car guy.. Is it routine or wait until a problem arises..? For me, I would wait until symptoms of a problem arises before I would replace a valve or a vale seal. Unless you are bored and have money and time and plan on keeping the car a long time!! But that is just me..

Chad05TL

The mechanic may think it is easier to remove the head while the timing belt is off, and basically just do the whole job at once, to include the valve seals. That is probably why he quoted onlyan extra $600 to replace the valves. Which seems very cheap after watching the video! I assume he would replace the seals too. I would not want to just replace the valves without replacing the seals (That would be a mistake in my opinion.).

Often times, doing many tasks at the same time is worth it. But on the other hand, I would hate to fix something that is not broke." Especially when it comes to valves and valve seals which is not on the scheduled maintenance.. Timing belts is a different story. Those are on the regularly scheduled maintenance plan.. So yes I would replace a timing belt even if it aint broke.. But that is different than valves.. How do valves "go bad" anyway? I hear seals can begin to leak on other cars... but that is all I am aware of. So i would avoid replacing just only the valves for no reason.. For me, it would have to include the Seals as part of the job AND I would need to see a problem like low compression, or smokey exhaust, or some other issue. And lots of these TL's last up to 180k miles. I've seen them for sale with that many miles. So I assume they are running.. And I have never heard of anyone replacing valves or valve seals just at random, as a routine maint..

Maybe a "valve adjustment" is ok... But a replacement? hmm.. Kinda doubt it based on all the other high mileage TL's out there..

08KBP_VA

Im assuming you meant valve adjustment and spark plug change and that seems high to me for all that work but some folks have been quoted that just for TB.

Chad05TL

I thought he meant valve replacement.. because he said "replacement".. But yes, a valve adjustment is more feasible, as I said..

Dont forget to ask the mechanic about replacing the timing belt tensioner & Idler. Turbonut mentioned it here ... I did my tensioner when I did my timing belt.

Jackass

Lots and lots of threads about this already....pretty there is at least one if not two other active threads today talking about TB replacement.