I love driving this car but now it won't pass inspection, took it in to get an estimate of work to be done and they said around 3000. This involves an oil trap, swaybar and link, coolant flush from cooling system level low, thermostat ext sensor, camshaft reset valve,spark plugs,cvt hub , 4x camshaft seals, timing belt kit cause it is oil soaked, 3 way cat converter, can I please have some input on this, body is ok condition, someone hit rear side panel but not dented. Has about 165000 miles on it, new tires, I did not post this in Craigslist, live near Lancaster pa if anyone is interested in it, not sure what I should do

 

By "won't pass inspection" can I assume you mean emissions inspection? Or do you have a check engine light with codes? If you have the Oxygen Sensor bank 2 error code then it's either the bottom O2 sensor or the cat convertor has failed. I used something called a CEL BOSS from IPD that eliminated that error code forever.

The oily timing belt is a problem though. It sounds like you have the dreaded leaking VVT gear (aka CVT hub). You can actually repair it with the proper sized o-ring. I would fix the leak, replace the belt, and reset any error codes then drive the car to make sure the error codes did not return.

Now you realize it is a 16 year old car? It's going to need TLC to keep it going. If this is too much you would be better off financially to upgrade to a newer car. Having someone else do your maintenance is expensive. Just my humble opinion.

 

The little plunger thingy where the oil leaks:


The plunger removed with the o-ring in pieces:


The VVT gear outer teeth :

 

we have a state inspection and emissions, and the check engine light is on, my garage couldn't pick up a good reading from their codes so I took to a dealer who gave me that list, ugh, I am going to take that list and yours back to my first guy and see how he does with it, thank you for your help and pictures

 

Yep, first step is to go to Autozone and ask them to read the fault codes causing the check engine light. They will do this for free and you can post on the board for some probable causes.

Its likely that with the VVT gear mess you have a codes relative to the camshaft timing. There is also a fault code for catalytic converter efficiency (I think its the P0420 code) which is done by comparing the oxygen sensors before and after the cat. If the rear sensor is finicky a cel-boss spacer will fix but sometimes the car may just need a long fast drive to really heat up the cat. if the cat is indeed bad, you'd likely fail the HC or NOs test on emissions. Replacing is not that expensive - the part goes for $325 and has a total of like 5 bolts to drop it in (unless of course, if the oxygen sensors are old and stuck then you can add $200 to that total).

 

Check out the VOMAR facebook group - lots of tri-state area folks on there, mostly friendly and could suggest some reliable folks for you.

My opinion that's a steep list of items and if the shop can't read the codes, you don't want them working on it.

https://www.facbook.com/groups/vomarcars/