My husband and I did all my neons timing belt and everything that is needed with it for around 300 bucks . Im thinking about doing it for the 2nd time in my 04 seeing she now has over 200,000 I changed it at 130,000 so might be good for now. I dont trust anyone workin on my neon but my husband and uncle. My neon is my baby.

 

I found a mobile mechanic that will do it for $400 if I buy the parts.
Where do I find the best price on what I need?

 

moparkyle: I wouldn't necesarily agree with you there, bud. Even though I haven't had to replace mine yet - you can in fact get the timing belt kit for around $100 and a good mechanic who is honest & knows his way around a Dodge engine can have a TB job knocked out in 2-3 hours tops. Guestimating that he charges $60-65/hr, that's only $200 in labor for a total of $300-400. Now, yes, if you get yourself an modern-day "I'll do everything I can to rip you off & make myself money" mechanic - go ahead and pay $700. haha

The_Old_Guy: Shop around bud. There are many different places that will sell everything you need to DIY for around $85-150 depending on brand and seller. G'luck!

 

I found two kits on ebay
One has a hydraulic tenioner belt seals and pump for $77
The other converts the tenioner to mechanical-belt-water pump for $117
Which one do I get?

 

The mechanical tensioners are better, but the hydraulic ones work fine for normal applications. I got the belt, water pump and tensioner kit off of Amazon for ~$80.

 

Link would not work.Any way its on ebay

 

Hey everyone,

This is my first post and its a crucial one in my opinion. I bought a dodge neon SX 2.0 last month and it was a solid car with good handling and only cost CND 2500. It all seemed to go well until I found out that the timing belt of this neon have not yet been changed. The service manual tells to change it at 160 000 km and I my car had 172 000 km. I was getting worried because it could break any minute and I might lose the $2500 I invested.

I asked many qualified mechanics but all gave a price in the range $500 - 1000 (Canadian dodge dealer) just for the service and coolant flush. So I kept looking and finally got some one to start the job for $200.

This mechanic was a friend of my dad so we trusted him, but little did we know he had never changed a timing belt on a dodge neon before. The first problem we had was getting out the harmonic balance pulley. This monster was so tight that the universal pulley puller that they had started to bend. Since I'm in Canada the exact tool that was uniquely designed to pull this pulley out was not easy to find. It took almost a week for the mechanic to find the exact tool. So be warned! do not start this job if you do not have the tool described at 3:02 min in the youtube video below. If you can not find the exact model may be you can find same type of tool made by other brands/companies, but make sure you have those three strong arm design or you will never get the pulley out.

Once the pulley is out replacing the timing belt, water pump and tensioner pulley was straight forward. My cam and crank seals looked fine so we didn't spend more time replacing them. This was because I needed the car ASAP but I recommend replacing them (They wont cost more than $20 to buy).

On our way back we replaced some accessory components that looked bad and also found out that the top left engine mount was broken. Of course they charged me more for the extra parts that I replaced. So if you do this job you will find out a lot about the parts inside your car. I hope this clarifies most of the issues you might face when replacing your timing belt on your neon.


Cheers ,
SriLankanMJ

 

mine always come of easy with the smaller 3 jaw but I have the pieces extended wide as it goes, the night before i sprayed some pb on the contact surface & bolt hole, not on the rubber harmonic ring

 

New to forum I have 73,000 miles on car. Need to change all three motor mounts so I am doing timing belt as well. The question I have is I put around 50 miles a week on the car. Should I replace water pump also or should it be ok. Thanks for the help

 

Replace the timing belt, timing belt tensioner, accessory belt tensioner pulley, water pump and the cam and crank seals, along with the mounts.