I was driving my eclipse during the winter in Iowa and I discovered it was making a light, burning smell. I thought it was the brakes because I had replaced them completely a year or 2 ago and the brakes were starting to 'pulse' when I'd slow down and stop when I got off the interstate. When I took it to the shop they told me my rotors needed to be rotated but the smell was oil getting through the valve cover gasket and getting into my spark plugs. They said it'd be $800 to replace the valve cover and plenum gaskets, spark plugs, spark plug wires, plus labor.

I bought the parts on my own (while upgrading to aftermarket spark plug wires and high performance spark plugs) for alittle over $140, and had my friend help me with the work. It was perfect until the next day I was on the highway for just 5-10 minutes and my engine started to smoke. When I opened the hood oil was everywhere. I took it to the shop the next day and the mechanic told me the engine was 'tired,' he said its not blown but if I wanted to drive it I would have to keep adding oil. I took it into different shops to get engine replacement quotes and I needed my car within a month because I was moving to Florida for a summer job. The average estimates for the engine and labor was $2-3,000 for a used (75,000-82,000 mile motors) and $7-7,500 for a rebuilt.

I was about to give up when I called a salvage yard to see what they had and I was told they had a 2002 Dodge Stratus motor with only 60,000 miles for $500 that was the exact same engine. I did some research and its true, both are 3.0L V6 with a stock horsepower rating at 200. The main reasons I kept the eclipse instead of trade it in was because I could pay off $2-3,000 in an engine replacement better than car payments (and I replaced most of the parts over the past 2 years so it'd be fine for a few years), and also because Ive invested a lot of money in the body, lighting, and intake and exhaust.

I get my car back at the end of the week and I'm hoping the magnaflow exhaust tone hasn't changed, but if anybody ever needs to replace a 2000-2002 (maybe even '03-'05) Eclipse V6 (GT or GTS) engine, you should really look up the difference in availability and in price from an Eclipse engine and a Dodge Stratus (its the coupe, loaded version). It saved me A LOT of money, and for A LOT less miles!