Don't qoute me on this but I heard the timing chain mostly fails when the oil is not changed at regular intervals...Can anyone confirm this? I have over 50k miles on my 09 and no issues yet (knock on wood)

 

I have heard of warranty coverage for timing chain stretch being denied if oil is not changed at the recommended service intervals. In my area that is the severe maintenance schedule (3 months/5000km - whichever comes first). If I recall correctly from one of the factory training videos on the Evo X engine (on YouTube), there is reference made to contaminated oil causing chain stretch.

 

Just got finished replacing a timing chain for a friend on his '09 Ralliart that was out of warrantee. He experienced the warnings on the dashboard and immediately limped it to my shop. When I pulled the valve cover off, you could clearly see the chain had stretched past its limits by how far to the right of the marks on the timing chain cover it was sitting. Here's a side-by-side picture of the new chain on the left with much better links versus the old, stretched chain on the right. Both are being held at even height in my hand.

 

How much do the new chains cost?

 

How long did it take you. I was quoted 1K.

 

Total parts cost my friend around $600. But when he bought the chain the dealership told him he needed to buy a water pump also. I'm not too sure why he needed to buy a water pump because when I checked his current pump it was fine, so I didn't change it and told him to return it. Mitsu DOES recommend changing the oil pump chain when changing the timing chain, but the dealership didn't sell him one, so I didn't change his old oil pump chain because that also was working correctly. Took me a total of about 6 hours with 2 people.

 

Wondering how long this took you to do and also the cost of parts, chain is stretched on my RA and dealer says gonna cost $2600!! For them to repair So need to find some other solution thanks for any help!

 

Long-time lurker, first-time poster. 2009 Ralliart with 36,000 miles, completely bone stock with no modifications ever, always regularly maintained (was my dad's daily driver until 2013). So about 14 months ago in February 2016 at around 30,000 miles I got the "triangle of death" warning, took the car to the dealership and they checked the timing chain for stretch, they said it was fine, and they "re-set the values" for the computer, this is maybe a month after they replaced some of the other belts under a recall.

In the time since, the car has had no problems until a week ago, when I went to leave work to head home, the car took a couple extra cranks to get started and was running a bit rough, hesitating when trying to accelerate- the orange "service engine soon" light had come on, but no triangle of death indicator this time.

The next time when I tried to start the car, it was turning over but not firing. I had AAA load it onto a roll-back truck and they hauled it to the dealership.

The dealership took off the valve cover and said the chain was stretched. They took off the timing chain cover and said it looked like the chain tensioner had broken. They then took the chain off and did a leak-down test and said the intake side has zero compression.

From what they've said this means the valves are likely bent and it is possible the pistons are damaged, maybe more damage than that. They said to do an engine tear-down to see what all is broken, they would charge another $1600.00 to be able to tell what all is broken and what needs replaced in order to give me the price for rebuilding the motor.

They said they found a used engine with 77,000 miles on it pulled from a wrecked Ralliart and would charge about $8200 to buy the motor and put it in the car, which is probably roughly what the car would be worth with 36,000 miles on it (I found the engine for sale online myself, taxes and the dealer markup on the motor are around $1800- so even if I bought the motor myself and had the dealership install it, it would be roughly $6400.00- with no guarantee whatsoever on the used motor).

I'm 100 miles from Buschur Racing, to have them rebuild the motor as their stage 3, do the heads and replace the timing chain would be pretty close to $10,000 (just for the motor work, there's a long list of other upgrades it would make sense to do at the same time if I was having them build the engine that would probably add several thousand more dollars).

I'm not sure what to do. The car looks brand new (new tires a few thousand miles ago of course!), and the only issue it has is that the AWD control pump sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't- when the weather is cool it is fine, when it's warm, it sometimes works and sometimes does not- sounds like at some point I would need to replace the pump and re-seal it since the car is (was) driven year-round on salty Ohio roads (washed regularly but from what I've read the pump is not sealed well from the factory).

The dealer had roughly estimated that it would cost around 3/4 of the $8200 "new" used engine install for them to re-build it instead, but I'd need to fork over $1600.00 more to have them tell me what the total cost would be. I don't have full confidence in their ability to do a good job rebuilding the motor and would hate to spend that much money just to get the car back to stock.

I have no idea what the car is worth if I were to sell it without fixing it but I definitely don't have $10,000 or more to spend building a race motor right now. Anyone else been through this? Any recommended non-dealership shops around Columbus Ohio closer than the 100-mile tow up to Buschur Racing who might be able to rebuild the engine back to stock? Any advice is appreciated.

 

Please see my thread since i am experiencing the same thing. I have detailed very precisely my diagonistics process.

 

Hey everyone, my 2011 Ralliart Sportback has had a service engine required light on for awhile now. It will not go away and does not pull up any codes. What could that be? i have not taken it to a dealership yet as i have not had the time. Also, the SST transmission seems to chunk when i am coming to a stop.

 

I recommend finding time... that light doesn't come on for no reason. If it's the check engine light and your SST is clunking, probably unrelated issues. Get both addressed.

 

Just change my timing chain a week ago,and yesterday 0012 popped out,,called the Mitsubishi dealer who did the work talked to the technician told that got 0012 and 0017 code,,,he told me just bring the car back,,the quality is can i drive My car on that code?thank you,

 

Just change my timing chain a week ago,and yesterday 0012 popped out,,called the Mitsubishi dealer who did the work talked to the technician told that got 0012 and 0017 code,,,he told me just bring the car back,,my question is can i drive My car on that code?thank you,