Faults:
I have very little happen to this car. I am surprised that given how wonderful this car has been in 10 years, that this model gets a bad reputation for over heating and head gaskets.
I think the only major problem that lingered with this car last year was the temp gage kept going up as if car was over heating. However with my knowledge of this car, and not wanting to listen to 80% of mechanics jumping to head gasket, I found the problem to be a hair crack in the thermostat housing, which is very easily mistaken to look like a leaking head gasket when the coolant sprays from heating up.
Other than that, my car has been known for bad control arm bushings. Fixed that on badly designed bushings.
General Comments:
For having the car for 10 years and not costing anything major, and being at 220,000 klm, I would have to give a high rating for being a Quad 4 2.3.
This car at its age still has a great pick-up on it, although a little hesitant around corners.
The seats can be a little hard to get out of at times, and for the back, but I would still rate it at about 7/10.
After keeping the fluids topped up always and keeping it oil sprayed, I only have a quarter sized rust spot on back rear panel, which is not unusual for this model.
11th Apr 2010, 22:03
I completely agree. I have just finally retired mine at 220,000 klms. I had the same problem with the thermostat housing, which I found out later that many of them would crack on the housing seam from the heat. Of course resulting in looking like a coolant leak.
After most mechanics saying it was head gasket, I went back to them after finding the problem myself and showed them. The car still runs great, but it was time for me to retire it and move on to something new. Reason why most are known for head gaskets, are the users who drive them like GT's and never take care of proper coolant flushes and fluid changes. Was a great car, and it was actually hard to retire it LOL!