[squibby]

Hi Gents,

My 1998 Grand Vitara 2.5 Manual springs a large oil leak only on long journeys, has to be about 1hr 30 mins before she starts leaking, but once the leak starts the floodgates are indeed open and cakes the underside of the car in oil, perhaps it's dripping over one of the shafts.

It does stink, so I do believe it is transmission fluid, and dropped her off at a garage accordingly, since I hate leaks and often don't try to fix them myself.

Anyway, The report came back as follows:
Front timing cover seal leaking oil
Possible Gearbox Intermediate Seal leaking oil
Clutch showing signs of age
Gearbox will need to be removed to replace leaking oil seal, suggest replacing clutch
Suggest replacing radiator (Header tank perished)
Suggest replacing top and bottom hoses
Possible RH Inner axle seal leaking
Possible rear wheel cylinder leaking

Estimated cost provided verbally - $3000.

Now I'm usually a bit dubious, especially when the coolant system never loses a drop of coolant. My personal inspection this morning, the rad and tanks look fine, although I admit, the hoses are a bit squishy. No problem putting a couple hoses on, but not a chance I'm replacing the radiator.

I've inspected the gearbox, and they have cleaned it up well, so hard to tell, although from the stink I believe they must be correct about that leak from the gearbox. It appears to be two instant gasket seals from the factory.

Any comments on the issues, how hard to fix myself? Any you recommend I leave to the garage?

In addition to the above, I've noted the plastic intake duct from the air filter housing to the intake has perished big time. How much are these usually and anyone know what it's called so I can order one? Thanks

Thanks guys.

[alien]

That all sounds like basic maintenance on a car to me. Radiator & hoses is the only one on the list i'd do myself. I'm not a mechanic by any means so i'd personally leave the rest to a professional to make sure it's done right.

If you're not happy with the quote, shop around, but insist on genuine seals!

[bumstein]

+1, get another quote.

What stands out to me is the term 'suggest'. Have you had the conversation on what they suggest vs strongly urge? Most places will list things that can be put off for a while but may need to considered down the track.

Sometimes they bullshit you. My Landcruiser with 30k on the clock and Toyota 'suggest' the rear brake rotors may need replacing. I laughed at them and they admitted that was likely a long way down the track!

[MrRocky]

Gearbox seal, clutch, rear main generally get done at same time, leave the rest even buy rad hoses and keep in glovebox as spares.
Id say cost for that stuff would be $1500 ish including parts.
The words suspect and suggest indicate they are milking you for $$$ things either leak or they dont

[losfer]

Unfortunately i suspect they may of misdiagnosed the oil leak. They would quite possibly do all that work and your leak would remain. The v6's have a common problem in where there are 2 o'rings on the left hand side of the engine that get hard with age and leak. They are up toward the front of the engine so many misdiagnose as a front crank seal. One of the o'rings can be replaced in car but the other requires engine removal as it is in where the crank girdle splits to remove the crankshaft. If you do a bit of searching on here you will find a thread with a diagram of where these o 'rings are.

The RH inner axle seal i assume they mean the front rh cv shaft . Even if they replace the seal the leak will remain . It actually needs a support bush installed to compensate for wear in the front diff hemisphere where the axle goes in . Suzuki have a technical service bulletin on this problem and the repair procedure.

[jdk81]

Being in Brisbane, perhaps get Losfer to look at it?

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=53437

[Toomanycars]

Replace hose if swollen.
Replace reservoir and flush cooling system.
Do a degrease on entire engine and gearbox so you can see exactly where the leak is. Get someone else to have a look at it.
Sounds like they don't know where the leak is coming from and want to replace every possible suspect. Over-servicing comes to mind..
Like most cars.....take it to a make specific workshop "NOT SUZUKI DEALER" .. My wrxs go to a wrx/sti workshop where that is all they do.. They know all the common and most likely causes of things and they have a mountain of good 2nd hand parts. I do most work on all our cars myself but sometimes it all gets to hard or needs special tools.

[squibby]

Its with losfer now thanks. Hope I get a few more years out of it and another couple trips to fraser island. Dont want to leak over that pristeen island!

Some of the diagnosis is a bit over the top and pribably hit and miss. The rad is starting to perish but none of it is as terminally ill as the picture that was painted for me.

[Gwagensteve]

To be fair, this is an eighteen year old car. All the seals and hoses, along with the radiator, are now well beyond their design life. I might, as an owner, decide to not replace some things as they wear or exceed their service life, you can't blame the workshop for "suggesting" tea something as critical as a radiator with a plastic tank be replaced at 18 years of age.

My own car runs a plastic tanked radiator from a Camry (although from a 10 year older model than your car) and I can assure you the tanks can and do perish.

Steve.

[laurie]

this week we got a radiator $129 and hoses $67 ebay . easy to fit

[squibby]

Gwagensteve wrote:

To be fair, this is an eighteen year old car. All the seals and hoses, along with the radiator, are now well beyond their design life. I might, as an owner, decide to not replace some things as they wear or exceed their service life, you can't blame the workshop for "suggesting" tea something as critical as a radiator with a plastic tank be replaced at 18 years of age.

My own car runs a plastic tanked radiator from a Camry (although from a 10 year older model than your car) and I can assure you the tanks can and do perish.

Steve.

That sounds reasonable except for the fact they didnt identify the massive hole in the completely perished plastic air intake pipe a mere few inches away from the radiator. So forgive me if I beg to differ In my opinion.

[Gwagensteve]

That an 18 year old car has many parts that are at their service limit? I'd say the perished intake pipe only reinforces my opinion.

[squibby]

Well I did ask for opinions. So thanks.

[Toomanycars]

Can you get an alloy expansion tank or is it just a reservoir like the Sierras..

[squibby]

To clarify, its the plastic on top of the radiator itself, not the seperate white bottle. The black plastic on the radiator has hairline cracks with age.

[fordem]

I'd be replacing that, and sooner rather than later - it may be possible to replace the top tank only, there's a shop here that does that.

[squibby]

Its only $100 for a whole new unit off ebay, so pointless messing around with replacing bits of it. In my experience my radiators tend to degrade fairly gracefully with a minor leak prior to catestrophic failure. I think replacing it pre-emptively is a bit OTT having considered all of your opinions and considering it holds coolant perfectly at present.

[Chop]

Good you got losfer looking at it, mine 03 was leaking from that o-ring that he mentioned between the cases.

[losfer]

Just an update for squibby (i dont know if he wants his real name posted here so i wont) and the rest of you reading this thread.

I inspected the vehicle and while the radiator and hoses show some signs of age they are nowhere near a failure point . Like i said to squibby ,in an ideal world (Where money grows on trees) you would replace them. But having said that, when i look at components of a car i decide in my own opinion whether something requires immediate attention or future attention and his radiator and hoses fall in the future attention area.

The oil leak he was concerned about turns out to be not from where i suspected .Thats the problem with internet forums you read something and you automatically formulate your opinion and post it without knowing the full details. GUILTY AS CHARGED. Although he does have a weep from the infamous o'rings on the block it wasn't the source of the major oil leak.

While squibby was here we both identified the leak coming from between the transfer and gearbox. I have since removed the transfer case and the leak is coming from the front seal of the input shaft of the transfer. There are 2 seals in there. There is one where the input shaft goes into the gearbox and the other where the transfer input shaft comes out of the transfer. Both seals will be replaced while its out with genuine suzuki seals.

I have yet to remove the seal to diagnose why it is leaking .The input shaft has minimal radial play which would account for a leaking seal . the other reasons would be the seal is hard with heat/age or the shaft has a wear groove.

unfortunately i didnt get to fully diagnose it today as i had a dental appointment , $190 for a 15 minute consultation! A referral from my regular dentist who had a concern that there was an abnormality that he thought may of been a cancer.

Finally, someone has had the gearbox out before. 2 of the 4 bolts that hold the gear lever boot to the floor were non original 13mm head bolts. the transfer lever boot plate only had 6 of the 8 screws in it . the transfer lever wasnt even seated properly . both the transfer and gear lever boots were zip ties and not the original metal bands. the console was also missing the two clips between the seats .

his intake pipe with holes ...(not unmetered air but sucking in unfiltered air)... i rang around my usual sources and noone in SEQ had one, managed to find one down south for $115 including freight. Q Suzuki at Springwood wanted $252 for a new one!

No evidence of rh front cv shaft leak or rear rh axle seal/wheel cylinder leak. If he want me to investigate further i will.

[Scrawny]

So where was the engine oil leak from?

[losfer]

The engine was degreased recently and from his drive from the northside to the gold coast to me there was no evidence of a leak from the front crank seal. like i said i saw some oil leaking from the 2 o'rings leaking on the block but it wasnt running down the car ..

[squibby]

First names are fine, Simon = squibby. I asked for a diagnosis on the large oil leak that smelt like transmission fluid at the first garage (4x4 specialist) besides the massive up-sell attempt regarding the cooling system I suppose a diagnosis is what they gave me. Have to cut them a degree of slack because I understand that leaks can be hard to diagnose, but basically two mis-diagnosis is a bit poor and I aint taking it back to that particular garage. Also note that the transmision specialist also misdiagnosed and replaced two seals without curing the leak several months earlier. Ive also experienced similarly poor diagnosis on my other car, a Toyota, whereby the engine code shoukd have directed the main dealer directly to an exhaust leak, and yet they somehow tried to sell me a $2500 new catalytic convertor. I fixed the leak myself and engine light has not returned so a $25 seal versus the $2500 upsell? - No thanks. Basically I'm tired of having to get several opinions on everything. Im glad I've found a decent 'man in a shed' on the gold coast and if all goes well I hope he can sort me out on future. Im a good customer who pays promptly and isnt too fussy, I just want a bit of professionalism in return from these larger garages, but that aint my experience recently.

[Gwagensteve]

Here's a bit of perspective from the position of dealership service.

Dealerships are assessed on customer satisfaction, and brands are assessed on reliability. When a car is under warranty, the dealer will generally avoid troubleshooting - they will just replace anything required in order to repent you having to come back with the same problem, because then the brand looks unreliable and the dealer incompetent. I have quite a bit of experience with this in relation to an R50 mini, never the world's most reliable car. If something went wrong, they'd replace large numbers of associated components to try and ensure the problem went away.

However, that's fine under warranty, but outside of warranty, everyone wants very accurate diagnosis and troubleshooting to avoid spending any more money than required.

That's a very different mindset.

[squibby]

All fixed by Losfer. Showed me evidence of seals damaged by sand, probably from my last fraser Island trip. Would recommend. Thanks mate.