Hi All,
This may be something really easy to find and I’m looking in all the wrong places, but does anyone know how many engine mounts there are in a 1996 Geo Prizm? My dealer told me when I asked if they were bad that 3 were bad and one was good. I have found only 3 unique types online, however (I’m doing the repairs myself for probably $700 or so less), and when I asked about it at an Advance Auto Parts (out of curiosity) they could only see 2 engine mounts. So now I’m confused and can’t find anything, can anyone point me in the right direction?
Thanks,
Tom
Normally, on a transverse mounted engine/transmission there are 4. The parts house listings cannot always be reliably used because for some odd reason many parts houses do not stock all of the mounts for a particular car. This may present a problem if you need the one they ain’t got.
There should be a mount at the timing cover, one on the end of the transmission and one each on the front and rear. Some vehicles may also have a 5th one called a torque mount or rod. Subaru calls them pitching stoppers.
There’s not only engine mounts but also transaxle mounts.
Tester
Terminology.
Motor mount
insulator
support
seat
Torque strut
Transmission/ transaxle mount
Bracket
I checked the Haynes manual and it listed three engine insulators (RH Engine Mounting Insulator, FR Engine Mounting Insulator, and LH Engine Mounting Insulator (I have a manual transmission, btw) and a engine mounting bracket (RR Engine Mounting Bracket). Do I need to buy the bracket? Does it go bad? I think I found the other three on RockAuto but it’s really confusing when I look at other sites and they list at least 4-6 unique part numbers and some are listed as doing the same thing (even in the same brand!). Please help!
I’m no Prizm expert but there should be 4 mountings at a minimum. Don’t put a lot of faith into soft cover manuals either. They’re notoriously inaccurate or incomplete and Chiltons is a far worse publication than Haynes.
Something like this went on with my daughter’s old Mitsubishi a few years ago. The front mount was bad and apparently no one on Earth carried it or even had a listing for it. The car wound up getting one made for a Dodge Stratus.
Ditto for the rear control arms or control arm bushings. They were a dealer only item which would have to be special ordered so I had to manufacture my own bushings on a lather rather than shell out 600 bucks and wait a week for parts.
While I’m sure that there are differences in some apps, all of my rides have only had three on the integrated engine/trans assembly. 2 motor mounts and one trans mount. The motor mounts tended to be arranged in some “inverted symmetry”. One upper on the front (either left or right) and one lower on the rear (on the opposite side).