hey how it goin everyone. i just bought an 03 galant and i took it to a mechanic and they say it needs motor mounts. i need an honest price quote of what the price would be. Thank You.
That’s near impossible to say because so much depends on where the parts are procured from, the amount of markup, the shop labor rate, and how close they stay to the flat rate book. Shop rates vary a lot based on the locale with the east and west coasts being far higher than the country’s mid-section.
The car has 4 mounts. The only one really prone to problems is the front center one.
Figure 50 bucks for the mount and an hour of labor for that one.
If the problem has existed for a while, an ignored front center mount can eventually take out other mounts with the left side and rear one usually being the next to go. Those are more expensive mounts and involve more labor.
So what are the symptoms? Rough idle? Vibration at all speeds?
The idle is def. rough. its vibrates but not as much as i can hear the engine rattling. but if its in nuetral park or reverse the sound is gone. also when im driving the sound is gone and it drives perfectly fine. the guy at the shops says it will be about 500 because all of the mounts need to be replaced. how long can i go without out fixing this problem?
I would get another opinion or two on this before wading into 500 dollars worth of mounts. It’s highly unusual that all of them would be defective; especially on an '03 model car.
Mounts are something that does have to be guessed at either. One can usually see the damage if it exists.
Try this. With the hood open and engine idling in neutral, shift into DRIVE and REVERSE a few times. Watch the engine each time you shift. You should see it move a lot if all of the mounts are bad. If it moves only slightly then maybe the mounts aren’t as bad as claimed and there is another issue.
That issue can be an engine performance problem or an issue with the engine itself. The rattling noise (hopefully not the engine itself) could be a rattling heat shield on the exhaust system and this is not a big deal. A backyard test method for this can be to wrap the tailpipe with an old heavy rag or towel and whack it with the side of a balled up fist. If the heat shield is the problem you will often hear the rattle when you do this.
One or two mounts might be allowed to go for a short time but not all of them. I’ve having a hard time seeing all of them being bad on a young car unless the car has really been whaled on in the past.
Hope some of that helps.
The front left of the car has been hit in the past. could tht be the cause?