A friend of mine took his 99 Mazda Miata to a well known repair shop in Charlottetown to get a quote on a timing belt. The timing belt on these cars arent too bad to do. He also wanted the cam/crank seals replaced as well as the water pump since it's run off the timing belt. Also requested the serpentine belt and spark plugs get changed.
If you watch the number of YT videos on the replacement, you'll see that the valve cover coes off and plugs get removed as part of the job. The two piece timing cover comes off, crank and cam gears, tensioner, and the water pump is about another 10 minutes.
The shop quoted $3500! They looked up the timing belt, water pump, valve cover and serpentine belt as separate repairs and lumped them all together! For example the serpentine belt was quoted at 1.1 hrs, the timing belt 5 hours, the water pump 5.5 etc. My friend was too nice to speak up after getting the quote. He bid them a nice day and left.
He then stopped into the Mazda dealer and asked for a quote. They said they don't get into "those types of repairs" anymore. So, he went to the parts department for a parts quote. The guy replied "Expensive". He then asked if Mazda sold a timing belt kit that comes with the tensioner, water pump etc. "Nope!". He walked out.
Back in my days of automotive service we'd pull the Chilton book and look up a Timing Belt. It would look something like this:
Timing belt re&re 5.0
Add w AC .5
Add replace water pump 1.0
Replace Cam seals .5
Replace Crankshaft seal .5
It appears the fancy new quoting software doesn't do this and/or the guy behind the counter doesn't know about overlaps.
Pretty sad. The average car owner would have likely paid the $3500
A 1999, I assume these parts would be common for numerous years and numerous models of Mazda. Cheap parts and easy to do. For $3500, you could likely get a reman or a good used engine.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
My 1999 Honda 130 outboard has to have the valves adjusted every so often, plan on doing it this month. I guess all Hondas are like this, non hydraulic. The block is a 2.4L, a very common one. Ill have to see what the timing belt interval is. I put a timing /serpentine belt in my 2002 V6 Tacoma, surprised how easy it was. The water pump was leaking and the belt was getting due.
Until I got my first old car, I didnt even change my own oil. I very much enjoy mechanical work after pushing a pencil all my life.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
A friend of mine took his 99 Mazda Miata to a well known repair shop in Charlottetown to get a quote on a timing belt. The timing belt on these cars arent too bad to do. He also wanted the cam/crank seals replaced as well as the water pump since it's run off the timing belt. Also requested the serpentine belt and spark plugs get changed.
If you watch the number of YT videos on the replacement, you'll see that the valve cover coes off and plugs get removed as part of the job. The two piece timing cover comes off, crank and cam gears, tensioner, and the water pump is about another 10 minutes.
The shop quoted $3500! They looked up the timing belt, water pump, valve cover and serpentine belt as separate repairs and lumped them all together! For example the serpentine belt was quoted at 1.1 hrs, the timing belt 5 hours, the water pump 5.5 etc. My friend was too nice to speak up after getting the quote. He bid them a nice day and left.
He then stopped into the Mazda dealer and asked for a quote. They said they don't get into "those types of repairs" anymore. So, he went to the parts department for a parts quote. The guy replied "Expensive". He then asked if Mazda sold a timing belt kit that comes with the tensioner, water pump etc. "Nope!". He walked out.
Back in my days of automotive service we'd pull the Chilton book and look up a Timing Belt. It would look something like this:
Timing belt re&re 5.0
Add w AC .5
Add replace water pump 1.0
Replace Cam seals .5
Replace Crankshaft seal .5
It appears the fancy new quoting software doesn't do this and/or the guy behind the counter doesn't know about overlaps.
Pretty sad. The average car owner would have likely paid the $3500
Your quote looks reasonable, xtra 1hr for water pump and xtra .5 a seal. Better find himself a backyard guy, LOL.
Can probably buy a Kit with all needed stuff except seal for cheap on Rock Auto or similar place. 300-400 max for parts.
