Acura tells me I need ne mounts?! opinion plz
 

hey everyone, just brought my 2003 EL into service today and they told me my car's engine mounts are wearing and i need to replace it...

if it is worn should i have felt a difference in the past months of driving, do i really need it? or is this how they make money

i have 140,000 km on the car, but haven't felt any noticeable odd/increase vibrations during my daily drive

thanks!

Well the rubber in the mounts could be old and worn and in that case sloppy. You can pop your hood and see visually for yourself if you know where the mounts are. You will be able to see all but the rear. With the car running blip the throttle and see how much your engine moves around.

Berz out.

Have you owned the car since new?
do you know how it "feels" when its suppose to be new?

an easy way that I find if you need motor mounts is if you find that your car vibrates on idle or during at a red light when you have the foot on the brake

bad motor mounts and lead to alot of problems if left alone..
eg. wearing out the tranny seals because of the extra torque motion of the engine when you first accel.

dealership usually will do preventive maintenance but it is common for a high mileage car to have enough wear on engine mount to be replaced.

personally, I would doubt the engine mount will be a money maker for the dealership.

If you don't trust your mechanic at acura, take it somewhere else and see what they say.

yeah, im the only owner so i know the feel when new. no vibrations when idle or when braking at a stop

the only vibrations is like the first 30 seconds during a cold start...

will take a look under the hood when i get the car back

thanks

i remember when i had bad engine mount, i heard clunking noise whenever i shift to reverse and the car would vibrate for 1 second along with the loud clunk. It went away after transmission shop replace engine mount.

The dealer isn't going to make much money swapping mounts on your car because it's a pretty quick job.

Bad mounts can also be hard on your exhaust system.

Pop the hood, put the car in gear with the ebrake up and blip the throttle or release the clutch til it starts to engage if you want to see how much movement you have. Doing it in neutral/park won't tell you much since there's no load.

passenger side mount is the most common that I've seen fail on these cars its not to bad to get at and the mount itself isn't to expensive but when left broken it will lead to the other mounts failing prematurely as well as exhaust issues.

Tell that to Volvo of Coquitlam. Dad paid close to 1g to do the motor mounts on his car.

The 01-05 Acura EL and Civics have major quality issues with all their motor mount bushings, usually they only last around 100k before they start to go out. I'm not sure if Honda sells the bushings separate, so you can just press new ones in, but I know Energy suspension does and they are much higher quality than OEM. Most people who have them say they feel better throttle response, less vibration and they will last the life of your car. Energy suspension motor mount inserts are $24 dollars online.

A lot of other Honda guys make their own motor mount bushings out of urethane casting resin that they just poor into the mount wrapped it duck tape, its cheap and very effective. You could change every bushing in you car for $20 with this method.

fml