Just wanted to make a quick post to remind everyone of the importance of maintenance, especially if you've bought a used Evo. The end result is my fault. I know I could have prevented it and that's why I'm posting this.

Picked up my Evo just over 8k miles ago. Car was a repo and came into the "dealership" smoking and not running well. Before marketing the car, they ordered a new short block from a Mitsu dealer in Atlanta and then installed it into the car.

After the initial break in period I changed the oil to something better. At the second oil change, I also put some Redline in the trans and changed the fluid in the rear diff. The one thing I didn't do was change the fluid in the transfer case. Honestly not sure why I didn't spend the $8 for a bottle but I definitely wish I had. Guess I figured I'd hit it later.

Few weeks ago on the way home from work I got a nice grinding noise coming to a stop. I'll spare the full details, but after getting into troubleshooting I found out the transfer case had no fluid in it. Opening the drain plug and not a drop flowed out. Seems that when the shop put the engine back together they neglected to refill the transfer case. So now I have a new t-case that I just installed.

This could have been totally avoided if I had simply done ALL the fluid maintenance as soon as I got home. While the shop is full of ****tards I'm the idiot who skipped a simple task and turned an $8 bottle of fluid into a $1000 t-case replacement.

So boys and girls, if you pick up a new car do yourself a favor and do the simple things as quickly as possible. I'm impressed that the t-case drove for over 8k miles with no fluid before it broke down (including many pulls for my e-tune). But I'd much rather have my $1k back!

 

That sucks man... But to me that sounds like its the shops fault not yours at all. I wouldn't let them off the hook that easy and blame yourself. What if you were some joe schmo that just followed service intervals and didn't know any better? Thats on the dealer man... At least IMHO.

 

I don't take all the blame but I'm just irritated I didn't just change it when I changed everything else. Hopefully someone else reading this will not make the same mistake I did.

 

Damm sorry to hear that. My friend just happend destroyed his Tcase due to no oil.

 

8k with little to no fluid is pretty impressive.

I purchased mine in a similar fashion to you - unknown condition used from a dealership. Took me three months to get all the problems sorted and actually reliable. At first I figured these cars were a DSM project all over again, but it's proven itself to be the opposite a few times since.

Sorry you had bad luck!