How reliable has your DSM been?

[GalantGSR91]

Man, if you build it right the first time and don't shortcut it, it'll be fine. I drove mine without problems until I made a minor repair the wrong way. And I am in the indianapolis area, I can help ya a little if need be.

 

[Thomas91169]

i definately wouldnt get a 1g for a DD. especially modding a 1g and expecting it to be a reliable DD. youll be in the same boat as my buddy, who bought a 1g awd, and has had it for 2 months and driven it a week, clutch died, so fixed that, now rod bearings spun.

why people buy 1g's for DD's is beyond me. buy a crx or something if you want a DD, then get the awd for a weekend racer kinda deal.

 

[IMMORTALSPYDER]

Why does it take a wiseman to say if a DSM is a good DD or not? What about the other 25k+ members?

Anyway most of the people on here use their DSM as a DD so you'll be fine.

 

[DSMjrv]

if u drive her like a DD she will last like a DD... got my car a week ago... took it 150 to vegas and destroyed a rod or two... get all the apropriate temp guages and watch her good, and dont push her for too long...

 

[MrBentley]

bro. My car is my only car so i drive it alot. All you gotta do is keep on top of maintenance and not run the car like an ass and you'll be OK.

 

[Quasimondo]

i definately wouldnt get a 1g for a DD. especially modding a 1g and expecting it to be a reliable DD. youll be in the same boat as my buddy, who bought a 1g awd, and has had it for 2 months and driven it a week, clutch died, so fixed that, now rod bearings spun.

why people buy 1g's for DD's is beyond me. buy a crx or something if you want a DD, then get the awd for a weekend racer kinda deal.

That was a silly thing to say. Last time I looked around, a modified 2G can be as much of a reliability monster as a modified 1G. If the car is maintained properly, if the installation of aftermarket parts is done properly, and if the car isn't abused like a red-headed stepchild, then you will not have problems.

 

[GalantGSR91]

That was a silly thing to say. Last time I looked around, a modified 2G can be as much of a reliability monster as a modified 1G. If the car is maintained properly, if the installation of aftermarket parts is done properly, and if the car isn't abused like a red-headed stepchild, then you will not have problems.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

[dsm john]

Mine has been my daily driver for almost a year now and the only downtime I had was when the turbo that came on the car when I bought it decided to crap out , but that was probably because the feed line was coming from the block. This happened about 2 weeks after I bought it. Ever since then I put on a new turbo and relocated the feed from the filter housing and it's been fine for like 7 months with just regular maintenance.

I don't really baby my car either... well I do when I'm just daily driving around , but if I see something raceworthy I make sure to harass them and see if I can get a run out of em'.

 

[Thomas91169]

have fun trying to find a running good condition 1g, let alone a stock unmolested one.

i say what i say out of experience, from what ive seen with my own two eyes. yes a 2g can be just as unreliable if you run it hard. but being a older car, the 1g is going to have more things break just out of age.

from what ive seen over they years, id definately not buy a 1g and trust it to be reliable. i barely trust my 2g to go any farther than a 1.5 hour drive. im thinking on paying off the gst and getting a beater crx for a DD and using the gst when its nice. then again i hope it still runs when it gets paid off('07).

im just trying to be truthful. ive seen so many lies about dsm's being reliable(hell ive even lied about their reliability) and seen so many people get screwed over cause their car doesnt run and now they have to spend so much money they dont have to fix it, and its still STOCK.

no longer will i ever say "yeah a dsm will be a fine DD if you treat it right".

 

[GalantGSR91]

I've been putting my 91 Talon TSi AWD together in my garage for about a year now in my spare time.

Thomas, I agree with you, but the above line suggests that it's not merely a 1g that was picked up of some Joe Schmo without any maintenence. Like I said, if done properly it'll be fine. Just buying for plug and play excitement is stupid. I thought it was a general rule that you don't buy a used "sports" car of anykind without expecting broken shit.

 

[MyBlack94GST]

Why is everyone bashing Ray Charles today? Screw you guys!

 

[Defiant]

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192811

 

[fastezz]

OK my first dsm i got was really nice, it was a lightly modified talon tsi fwd. Well i guess that there was only one bolt holding tranny as well as the rear bracket that goes from the block to the mount was snapped which i knew about, so so the mount snapped off my tranny cracnking the threaded part. So i took off the tranny took it apart took it to a machine shop and got it filled in weleded and tapped for 80 dollars. 3 days after my tranny did that and it was all fixed running again, threw a rod, i have no idea how i did but i as running very rich and it threew it at 3k rpms. but anyeays that is my first dsm experiance.

My 2nd dsm experiance is the car i have now, it is a 1990 eclipse gs-t, it came with a new motor but shortly after i got it the water pump shaft snapped so i had to replace that so i replaced the timing belt with the gator timing belt off my talon knowing it only had 5k miles, well when i was putting it on i was trying to line up the 2 cams gears and one rotated 90 degrees and kinda crimpped my belt betyween the 2. then 2500 miles later it snapped. I should have known not to use a gator timing belt and should have noticed that the rubber looked a little old and had little cracks in it but i was in a hurry.

So after that i took about 3 weeks of my time to take my talon head which onlyh had 4 bent valves and replaced those with clevete valves and then after that i had it checked for warpage and they said it was in perfect condition, so i did not get it resurfaced but i did get it hot tanked. I also bought an oem timing belt from mitsu for 95 dollars. I also put arp head studs in with a felpro head gasket. This time i made sure i would do stuff right and not skip out on anything or make anytiming belt errors that could shorten it life span, this is the the 3rd timing belt job i have done. Well thats the storys on my dsm experiances in a nuttshell.

I just would like to know a few simple steps I could take to make my dsm more reliable??

 

[dalatinromeo]

I would suggest preventive maintance. At least two times a weeks, pop the hood make sure everything is in proper working order. Don't be late on your intervals. ex 3000k on oil changes timing belts every 60k or when it appears to be getting bad.

Things will eventually wear and tear, then break. But with preventive maintance and checking up on things you can change them before they break, resulting in other parts breaking. Hope I help a bit.

 

[DGajre777]

The only way of making it reliable is doing maintenance. If you got the car and didn't know when the belts were last changed then you should have got all belts and the waterpump. Since your car is a 90, I'd get a new alternator and starter too. Change the fuel filter and get a tune up (if you haven't). Check the tranny fluid (replace it if it's old) and don't be late on any oil change. Get a compression check, check for boost leaks, oil leaks, coolant leaks, etc.

 

[DSM BEEYACH]

Quote: What steps to take for my car to be more reliable??


Common sense period

 

[fastezz]

i wasnt really talking about mantinence, on all my cars it mobil 1 oil and mobil one filter every 3k miles i changed my fuel filter when i got it, it has a new water pump, tranny is full of syncromesh.i check my car on a weekly bases atleast under the hood especially after anything major like me putting on a different head with new valves and etc. i am really good at keeping up on mantinence iwas talking about things that i could replace to make my car more reliable. i think that i probably replaced everything possible in that department but im just really sick of it breaking on me especially since i 99 percent of the time do stuff right. I just want to get everything out of the way before i upgrade my turbo and have my 300-330whp daily driver. Im not new at this or anything i just posted this to see of anyone could come up with anytips i havnt heard of yet.
RYAN

note: my keyboard is messed up sorry about no caps.

 

[DSM BEEYACH]

Quote: Im not new at this or anything i just posted this to see of anyone could come up with anytips i havnt heard of yet.


Yea just replace the gasket between the steering wheeel and, the seat. !

 

[fastezz]

riiiight, i guess i shouldnt have posted in the newbie forum i knew there would be someone like you to give me good tips to follow.....

 

[DSM BEEYACH]

riiiight, i guess i shouldnt have posted in the newbie forum i knew there would be someone like you to give me good tips to follow.....

Relax buddy what i said i meant it as a joke. It just hard for me to take a post like your seriously. Your saying that your not new to this but, your acting like you never own'd a car before. Every car has it own problems. You just got to take care of your car and, the car will take care of you. No hard feeling intended.

 

[fastezz]

well i have babied my cars way more than the average car enthusiest and it has kinda screwed me over in the past just from bad luck, i am happy that you have had good luck with that theory i always try to stick by it to.
ryan

 

[fastezz]

well i have babied my cars way more than the average car enthusiest and it has kinda screwed me over in the past just from bad luck, i am happy that you have had good luck with that theory i always try to stick by it to.
ryan

 

[napkinthief]

if u want even more reliable, go n/a

 

[Ludachris]

if u want even more reliable, go n/a

An N/A is not automatically more reliable than a turbocharged car. To make them fast you usually have to turbocharge them anyway, which puts you back in the same boat. Face it, going fast costs more money. As long as do all the maintenance at the correct intervals and do things right the first time, you should be okay. Anytime you build up a car to put down more than twice its factory hp rating, you're most likely going to run into problems no matter what.

 

[integraxtc]

Now I know how all this works. If you treat the car well, it'll last. Do maintanance and it'll last (DUH!). But this is where reliability comes in.

First a little background. I'm coming over from Honda world where your shitbox will be stolen. I'm tired of it, and I've gone through some of it. I'm pretty sure DSM aren't targeted to that degree. So, I'm also tired of my torqueless sohc (which was supposed to be turboed, until I decided to get out of the honda scene before they steal my car, and it won't get recovered).


So I've heard stories of reliability from very reliable to living hell. What's the deal? Honda's are reliable even if you don't keep up on all the maintanance. What to do? DSM AWD turbo is fun (I'm looking at 2 1g TSi's) my bro has a 1g. (can't judge on his car, cuz he rebuild the engine, bought it ####ed up, and the tranny was also going and went, so he replaced it.)