The wife is going to work in her '97 GST and when she pulls out the lights inside the car look like a Christmas tree on the dash and the power steering is gone. She limps it back home about a 1/2 mile away and I figure it is probably a belt, no big deal.

When I had the timing belt changed I had the dealer also change all the belts and do a few other minor things I usually do but really didn't have the time, and they were to diagnose the'check engine' light. The diagnosed for a day and didn't really find anything, something to do with the fuel (and it still runs rich) and it cost me 200.00for that and they said the next guess was the computer, or just ignore the light since it was running fine. Today I find that the belt came loose because the mechanic did not want to screw around with getting the right size belt on because it was a little tough so he used a half inch longer size to make it easier to get on the pulleys.There is a bolt on the idler that wasn't even hitting the bracket to tighten the belt up, it was way pass. I don't know how you can get in that tiny space and have tightened the beltwithout the tensioner, so I imagine that the belt was loose, came off and took the other belt on the crank off too, taking the alternator off line too causing all the lights to go on in the cab since it was loosing power. Lamo mechanic. With a little effort he could have doneit right.

I have talked to the dealer's rep at the service counter and all he wanted to do was pass the buck to the original service person I talked to. Remember, the mechanic is the one that does the work, not the service counter rep. When I had him on the phone telling him the belts came off and he said they would be covered if I tow the car to them. Are you kidding me? So I asked him that doesn't make sense when a belt if 15 bucks and the tow is 80, I will fix the car myself. Tomorrow I'm going to go see them in person to have a little chat about customer service and what you are suppose to do when you give less than quality service.

 

Wow.. I had some bad experiences with dealerships.. They even screwed up my atv when I took that back to the dealer i got it from...

My spyder though ended up getting a new motor on there expense because of there stupidity.. I hate there "waranties" they sell or give you with there cars.. Biggest rip offs..

 

Techs that are new to a dealership arent familiar with older cars like your DSM, so he probably has only been trained on the newest of mitsu technology....So thats probably why he was too stupid to fix it right.

 

Update. The dealer took the car in and has there supposed head tech looking at it to try to figure why the 'check engine' light is on. With the code saying something wrong with the fuel system, but not exactly what, he was thinking the fuel pressure gauge as I was too, and he also checked the ecm which they were trying to tell me the first time that that was maybe the problem and he found that both checked fine but the check engine light was still on. On the way home another thing hit me that I forgot to tell him that we really didn't notice before until the cold front hit this winter, the car temprature does not go over 1/3 of the way up the gauge and the car takes for ever to get hot and never gets real hot. I would think that if someone before we bought the car last summer put a lower temp gauge in the car may notice that it is not up to temp and possibly lighting the 'check engine light. They will also pay for my belt that I bought if he finds that all the pulleys are good and all the rediagnostic is on the house, as it should be anyways since they did not diagnose it the first time.

People with GST's, specifically '97's and similar, where does your temp line peak?

 

Wow some dealerships really are just retarded. If you still have the check engine light on i would say to go to autozone too and have them scan it so you can get the exact code # from them. Then let us know and we might be able to give alittle insight

 

I did give the code on the board and they did diagnose and it was a generic code for the fuel system. I thought it was the fuel pressure system, but it checked out. They did find that someone before me did put a lower temp stat in and it was keeping the motor temp lower than stock. The tech said he still did not thing that was the problem, reset the computer and the 'check engine' light has not gone off since, and the car is running in the higher rpm's better than before and they think that was also the problem why it would smoke under heavy boost, too cold. With the problems I had with the last time and the belts, the stat and extra radiator fluid was thrown in and I paid the labor only for the stat to be changed, which they of course said they could not check the sytem againtill it was done and I was not leaving the car any longer. They worked on the diagnos for approxiametly 16 man hours now so I feel I got my 200.00 worth that I was bill originally. So, short answer, so far so good, the light has not come back on.