Prospective owner

[peter9000uk]

Hi there everybody

Been lurking for a while now as I have been doing a little research on Galants

They seem to be a very well kept secret!:happy:

I am looking to get a GLS Estate to drag my fishing gear around the country and I currently drive a 5 series BMW estate. A couple of questions if you please.

1. One car I have my eye on is an auto, what are the auto boxes like on the 2 litre? Are they prone to problems?

2. What sort of real world mpg can I expect?

3. Although the car has full service history it is fast approaching a cambelt change. There looks to be plenty of room in there, but are they a pain to change? Can't find a lot of engine info on these so I ask is the waterpump driven off the cambelt as a lot of cars seem to be these days(lucky with the BM as it's chain driven)

4. The stock alloys look a little lost in the arches. Do the VR4 wheels fit or is the stud pattern/spacing different. Is the offset the same?

5. Lastly (for the moment!) any weak spots on these cars? A couple I have already dismissed seem to have the dreaded tin worm starting in the rear arches, is this a common problem area? I suspect that owners just have not cleaned the muck out of the lip regularly.

6. Was Rowan Red the most popular colour for these:inquisiti as there seem to be an awful lot in that colour/thankyou

Sorry to be a pain on my first post!

Look forward to buying one and parting with my £20 in due course!

[Nick Mann]

Hello and welcome! I can't answer all of your questions fully, I have never owned a GLS. I would imaine Kieran is already writing an answer or ten which will be more helpful than mine. To the best of my knowledge:

1. Autos are not a big problem providing they are properly serviced. Check the oil in the box is red, not brown.
2. I think Kieran only used to get around 28-30 mpg in his auto GLS. A manual V6 will be just as frugal.
3. I don't know anyone who has changed a cambelt on the 2.0l, but the V6 and the VR4 have water pumps driven by the back of the belt. I would be suprised if the 2.0l was different.
4. The VR4 has five stud hubs, but other G's only have 4 studs. There will plenty of options - the pcd is 114, so an ebay search should bring up plenty of 17" options. The problem is also that the Galant sits high on it's suspension (especially the front) so even if the wheels are bigger, they can still look lost.
5. The rear arches are a favourite place for rust. Also check the seams in the engine bay. The front lower ball joints were a recall item and have often failed. I don't know many who have problems with the ball joints after repair/replacement.
6. Not as common as you seem to think? Have a look at some pictures in the gallery. We know of a few roanne red cars, but the most common seems to be silver.

Hope that helps!

[bradc]

1. The VR-4 boxes tend to overheat and fail, the ones in the GLS's are better, but you must use good oil when you change the oil

2. Around town probably 25mpg, on the highway 30-35mpg

3. Not too difficult, fortunately for both this and the transmission oil change we have our own service guys called WRD that do the job properly and charge very reasonably

4. VR-4's have 5 stud wheels, GLS's have 4 stud. The PCD is 114.3 which I beleive makes it rather hard to find wheels over there. A common upgrade is 17" mags with 215/45/17 tyres, in fact this was standard on some V6's

5. Not really, I think I've only seen one car with rust there at all.

6. It's very rare in VR-4's, but might be more common in GLS's, I don't really know.


Welcome to the club by the way, what is making you change from the 5 series?

[peter9000uk]

Thanks for the replies so far, chaps

I was being a little sarcastic re the colour as of the 5 I have viewed so far 4 have been Rowan Red! Also 4 have had rusty rear wheel arches. Age didn't seem to matter either as the oldest has been a 1997 and the newest a 2000 and had rust. The current one leading the pack is a 2 owner 1998 model. I was curious as to the autobox because this particular one has a tow hitch on the back which has a double socket which points to it having towed a caravan at some point in its life. Autoboxes and owing are not a good combination as far as I'm concerned as in my experiance they tend to overheat.

The mpg figures you quote are a little disappointing though, I presume that a manual version would be better./rally I achieve better than that in the BM.

As far as switching from BMW goes, this one is my second 5 series estate and I just fancy a change to Japanese cars. I hope they like clocking up the miles as my previous BM is still going strong at 267000 miles! Current one is barely run in at 130k !

[g6acb]

/Welcome

I have owned a 98 gls (14" wheels) and now a 2002 (17" wheels)

Not an estate, but I get around 33mpg out of my manual 2.0 16v saloon - and thats with a bigger % of motorway than most - the manual gearbox sometimes feels as if it could do with either a 6th gear or a longer 5th as 70mph is just over 3000 revs, but this means 70 to 90 acceleration is actually pretty quick - it does munch fuel above the speed limit :pimp2:

Regarding the wheels, yes the 14" do look a bit small, but they do give a better ride with the 65 profile, are tough as old boots and weigh a load less than my current 17" - my old car was quicker off the mark..... at the end of the day the ideal with wheel upgrades is to keep the rolling radius the same so if they do appear to fill the arches more its an optical illusion

lowering springs are an easy upgrade but the estate has self leveling suspension which may cause problems???

rear arches - yeah the lip is a bit of a magnet for muck which can only speed up the development of rust

Older galants came in a much wider variety of colours than the closeout models with several nice pearlescent finishes - including roanne red

never tried to change timing belt myself - but I know that the ancillary belt for the oil pump requires an engine mount removing to drop the engine a bit for removal - if a car is due a cambelt and the ancillary belts were not changed 1st time round then this will deffo need doing - you might want to look at a new water pump too as that runs on the cambelt

Having said all that - after my 1st Galant was written off I spent ages looking at other cars before comming back to the Galant on the basis of value for money, looks, pace (everything is relative on this turbo mad site!!), space and the what is that? factor

[Kieran]

Welcome!

As Nick says, my first foray into Galant ownership was via the mighty GLS. They are a cracking car for the cash.

My GLS was a 2000 model year saloon. The main differences were the autobox was upgraded to a tiptronic style box and the bumpers were more modern looking - See here:

http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2528

The GLS Autobox seems much less prone to failue - it tends not to cook itself if you're an 'enthusiastic' (Ie, loony!) driver, and it also doesn't strip it's torque convertor splines like the V6-24 version can. As others have said.... ATF is the key. These boxes have a bad reputation in the trade, but it's mainly down to negligent ATF changing/flushing and incorrect selection of the correct grade of ATF - Dexron III is not suitable!

MPG - Nick's right. All in, my saloon got ~28-30mpg. That was about 70% town driving and 30% fast roads/mways. My best ever MPG was about 40. This was on a journey to Croydon with the cruise control set at 60mph.

Regarding the cambelt. Isaac Sibson on here recently had his GLS cambelt done - might be worth a Private message to him?

Regarding weak spots - Nick's answered that one for you. Mistubishi Rustproofing is adequate on the UK models (rubbish on the imports!), but the rear arches and engine bay seams are vulnerable. The balljoints should have been done by now under recall, but it's worth checking this out.

VR-4 wheels don't fit, as has already been said. A lot of V6 owners (Myself included, yes I owned a V6 Sport too!), found that Eibach lowering springs made the car 'sit' right... And also improved the ride when coupled with bilstein shocks. I'd say this is a better bet than new wheels.... I always felt that the high tyre sidewall 'hid' the gap to some degree.

And, if I may add one other comment.... If my Legnum was taken away from me tomorrow, and I could choose between the V6 and the GLS.... Having owned both, I'd choose the GLS. They're cheaper to run in terms of petrol and servicing, just as comfortable (I say more so!) and generally speaking, they're just an easier car to live with. A GLS is your friend. :scholar:

[Subaru ETA]

is it a gdi? correct me if im wrong but do they have 2 cambelts? the chariot does i know tthat much!

they rust on the strut towers and the firewall seam

[bradc]

The UK-spec GLS has a 4G63 in it without GDI (I think it's a 4g63, might be something else, but it definately isn't gdi)

Kieran, just for the record, if I couldn't have a turboed car anymore, I would buy a manual Legnum ST-R with black leather tomorrow.

[peter9000uk]

Thanks for all the input, fellas! Keep it coming.:thumbsup:

I think the GDI is a 2.4 isn't it?

All the ones I've looked at so far have been 2.0.

2 cambelts! That's a new one on me. As I suspected waterpump driven by cambelt so worth changing while you're in there then.

If I plump for an auto I think an autobox service will be high on the list of to do items then. Any particular brand/spec of oil better for them than others? I mention as Honda autos are much nicer if you use the genuine Hondamatic in them.

Is there a decent workshop manual available for the 2 litre?

Any recommended tweaks? The 134 bhp seems a little weak for such a big car.

Nice to see you boys don't poo poo the smaller engined variants as some of the BM site do!

[bradc]

They made 1.8, 2.0, and 2.4 GDI engines and they are all total utter crap. Fortunately you can tell really easily by opening the bonnet and looking at the engine cover. If it says GDI, just let go of the bonnet and start running.

I've driven an auto 1.8 (check out my gallery) that engine is rated at 150hp, but probably has less torque than a 2.0, and I wasn't satisfied with it's performance, 1st and 2nd weren't a problem, but 3rd and 4th were very widely spaced, and it was a bit of a slug at high speeds. I would suggest going with a manual, unless you are prepared to look at a V6, in which case you get an engine which is a lot more powerful and torquey, and it sounds great too. The V6's also don't use much more fuel than the 2.0's, especially the manual ones.

[ritch_w]

amsoil is the oil of choice (discount for members) a full flush is required, dealers normally just drop the sump and add 5 litres, around 10 is needed to do a full flush and get the old crap out on the vr-4, gls may be less.

if you want more poke a v6 is the answer, 160bhp with a manual box will easily return 33 - 35+ mpg on a motorway trip.
I averaged 33mpg in the manual with lots of short town journeys and 1 long motorway trip every week, v6 auto i had managed 29mpg for the same useage.

nowt wrong with GLS's but if I get another Galant, I'd go for a v6 manual.

[bradc]

in case you're wondering Peter, ritch has owned more Galants than the rest of the uk combined :)

[g6acb]

There is no haynes style manual for the galant, we have the mitsubishi workshop manual in the members area (also available on fleabay) - this is UK specific and covers 2.0 and 2.5 v6 engines - there is also mitsubishis parts program caled caps floating around, combined with a lot of the 'how to' guides in the members area there is quite a wealth of info

You may come across a haynes style manual on fleabay from time to time but it covers US market galants which are very different

While ClubVR4 is primarily aimed at the twin turbo beasts there is a lot of knowledge about the 'lesser' models here

If you feel the 134bhp is low - there is a bit more to be found with exhaust, intake etc but ECU is non- flashable - any tweeks here would have to be done by a piggy back system at more expense than is probably worthwhile....

TBH if you feel its underpowered then get a V6 - I was always put off by the bigger running costs, but knowing what I know now that it can be serviced outside of the dealer network for reduced cost (WRD) with better oils than Mitsu would use (amsoil) its probably the way I would go now - I suppose it depends how much it changes your insurance and how much more a v6 would cost to buy

[Subaru ETA]

i guy at workand i did a cambelt on his gdi chariot and it had 2 cambelts. the wterpump was run on the smaller of the 2 im sure! unless ive just lost it! :p

[Kieran]

i guy at workand i did a cambelt on his gdi chariot and it had 2 cambelts. the wterpump was run on the smaller of the 2 im sure! unless ive just lost it! :p


Sure that wasn't the balancer shaft belt? I know the GLS has one, and you can only get at it when the cambelt's off I think?

[Subaru ETA]

could have been....it was a short wide belt....it was 2 years ago that we did it so i cant remember!