[lotusesprit86]

Hi All,

Just bought a 86 Esprit Turbo, 4cyl. I absolutely love the car and I want to make sure all of the maintenance on the car is up to date and I was wondering if anyone has advice on changing the timing belt (when that should be done and how hard is it to do). The car runs perfect and only has 72k miles on it and I just want to do regular scheduled maintenance to keep it that way.

Thanks
greg

 

[LotusGuy48]

If the car came with no service history then the first thing you want to do is change the belts which is very important. Would also recommend flushing and replacing the coolant, brake and clutch fluids at the same time as well as changing the oil.

 

[AndrewS]

Hi Greg,
Congrats on your acquisition . Where about in upstate NY are you? I am in the Albany area & we have a growing group of lotus owners here.

Andrew


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[CABT]

Welcome, from Down State.

 

[4380r]

Hi All,

Just bought a 86 Esprit Turbo, 4cyl. I absolutely love the car and I want to make sure all of the maintenance on the car is up to date and I was wondering if anyone has advice on changing the timing belt (when that should be done and how hard is it to do). The car runs perfect and only has 72k miles on it and I just want to do regular scheduled maintenance to keep it that way.

Thanks
greg

Congrats on the car! Pics or it didn't happen!

As others have said if you don't have a record of when the timing belt was last changed, you should do it sooner rather than later. These are interference engines so a broken timing belt is usually fatal to the engine. And rebuilding one of these engines costs more than you probably paid for your car.

Hard to do? If you're VERY mechanically inclined you can do it, but it's a big job and fairly complex. Even if you can turn a wrench, getting someone who knows these cars is a good idea for this job...then it's not hard for you, just very expensive.

 

[sturgeongeneral]

Welcome and congratulations! Great mind set to get the maintenance done. Do it all and have a starting point to go on from.