Hi, I've purchased 2003 Eclipse RS 2.4L 5speed manual, 185000km, without any maintenance record. The car starts and drives well . So far I changed transaxle oil and brake fluid, both looked like never been changed before. I am not familiar with those cars and don't know their weak points and would appreciate any suggestions on what I should check next . Do these cars suffer from torque steering during acceleration or bad alignment.
Thanks

 

Another thing to be aware of is these cars are interference motors therefore if your timing belt were to break you would end up having to rebuild the cylinder head due to bent valves. So i would replace the timing belt and tensioner since those are recommended every 60k miles and who knows if the previous owner did it.

 

I removed a top TB cover to have a look. The belt is good but bends 1/8" under light finger pressure. Is that a correct tension?
Thanks for any help.

 

im not sure if that is normal tension, but i would not mess around with trying to make it last, because if it goes, your whole motor goes. a new belt is pretty cheap and a shop can easily put them in, so go get that looked at. with the torque steer it depends on how you drive the car, if you drive it normal and granny shift it, there wont be any torque steer, but if your dumping the clutch and racing everything that moves there might be, i got a 05 eclipse GT and i get a little but its nothing you couldn't handel.

 

i drive an 01 eclipse gt with 140,000 miles on it and the only thing that has been changed out in it is the drive belt ,egr valve, o2 sensors and the radiator only cause it had a leak. im changing the timing belt this weekend (thats very important) and while there at it getting them to change the water pump to since its where the timing belt is.the book says the timing belt should be changed every 60,000 miles but ive never had a problem with mine and ive got 140,000 miles.i also plan on changing my manual transmission fluid and my fuel pump.i just recently cleaned my throttle body and iac valve and maf sensor car runs 10 times better after that.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URFipH31-Eg
timing belt,all o2 sensors,clean your throttle body,maf sesnor and iac valve,change your trans mission fluid and you should be good to go for another 100,000 miles

 

Thank you all for your help.
I've replaced timing belt A and B, tensioners, drive belts, transmission and engine oil, power steering fluid, brake fluid, spark plugs, valve cover gasket, PCV valve. Couldn't replace Timing belt Idler Pulley because access is blocked by oil pump. There is an oil leak around oil pump shaft. Do I have to remove the engine to fix that oil pump seal or gasket?
Timing belts were still good but I changed them anyway.
There was some oil at the bottom of spark plug tubes. How hard is it to fix that leak?
Have anyone put a block heater on 4G64 engine, do I have to remove an exhaust manifold to do it ?
Thanks