carina Repairing A Carina Gt

[HB211]

Hi guys,

My car is a Carina GT YOM 2000 model (AT210). Few weeks back came acorss a very low millage same model GT in Japan and bought it mainly to source parts for my car in SL. Can someone please recommend a good and reliable place to do the replacing work? Initially im focusing on replacing engine, gearbox & suspesnion related parts. Heard some positive comments about Re*l*ca S*e*d but have a small doubt how their work on these toyotas as they are more speciallized towerd Subarus and evos. Prefer a place around Colombo.

[c1nder]

Nadeera Jinasena - Dynamic Racing? Kotikawatta

[Supra_Natural]

Platinum Auto Spa in Boralesgamuwa is very highly spoken of by the performance car community.

[HB211]

Thank you C1nder.Found his number through FB and will call him today.

Thanks Supra. PAS was my second option after Replica speed. Going to have a chat with PAS this weekend. Need to check their prices as many cliam they are bit expensive.

[ghostwriter]

I have done a repair from PAS for my car. to take the engine and gear box out + cleaning them + fixing new oil seals (all oil seals) + fixing axle seals + axle boots and some other related work were done. the labor cost was 16K. my overall bill came to 41k with spare parts plus an efi tune up (4k-ish for tune up). good thing is that most of the mechanics are actually qualified from places like German Tech and they know what they do. however, keep an eye on what's going on cause they tend to overdo things and cost you more.

Edited June 27, 2016 by ghostwriter

[Supra_Natural]

Thank you C1nder.Found his number through FB and will call him today.

Thanks Supra. PAS was my second option after Replica speed. Going to have a chat with PAS this weekend. Need to check their prices as many cliam they are bit expensive.

Yeah they certainly are not cheap, but the general consensus is that the quality of the work is such that you get value for money. Mind you I don't have personal experience with them, just relaying what people I know have experienced.

[tuner88]

Nadeera Only does Race-car work these days, i know this because I've personally asked this from him. PAS is good, but you may have to wait in a queue, but please call and ask and it won't be cheaper at all. but my personal opinion for you is to try a good local mechanic as this is just a swap job, then you can go for good tuner after. wherever you go make sure to leave de car with safe hands. as these 4AGE BT parts are highly demanding now, every piece of part has its own price . try Saheeq nana at Shaz Auto too he knows his 4AGE's well and Nilantha at Dehiwala. i have both the contact numbers will give them to you

Edited June 24, 2016 by tuner88

[HB211]

Supra & Ghostwriter: I visited PAS this weekend and had a chat with them. They said they can do the replacing of engine + gearbox + front and rear suspension + Steering wheel within 4 days. But I personally think it won't take four days for this work, because my parts are arriving as a bulk unit, not as individual parts. i.e: engine removed from the car with gearbox and front suspension still attached to each other as it came from the factory. Rear suspension also removed as a bulk unit. It took only one day for us to dismantle the entire car in Japan (2 people involved). PAS said it will cost about 25k for this work. Looking at the quality of work they provide I think this is an okay price. What are your thoughts on this?

Tuner88: Thanks for the info machan. I agree with your point. This is a replacing work only. Only worry I have in terms of giving it to a local mechanic is safety of the parts. Because obviously will have to leave these parts at the garage for few days and knowing the unpleasant stuff that these guys do at garages, I don't think this is the best option. Saheeq and Nilantha do the replacing work as well? or just the tune ups only?

[ghostwriter]

When I was doing the repair PAS took only one whole day to take the engine and gearbox out of the car but unfortunately for me I had to keep the car about 7 days due to the time taken for repair and supplying the spares. I was however satisfied with the work they did. their work was transparent and during the week it was there, I spend a lot time in the garage observing how they do the work (it was not necessary but I was close by and I was curious to see what's going on). as I mentioned earlier, I really felt like that mechanic who do the actual work know what they doing except for the supervisor who would sometimes make up a story when I ask about something (e.g when I took the car out there was a jerking-like feeling and I felt like the engine is jerking too much. I suspected they may have not tighten the engine mounts properly so I took it back. when I showed to the supervisor he got in to the car and just said "there is some electrical problem with the car, you need to replace the coils". then the mechanic guy who repaired car came there, took a thorough look down under and found out a lower arm joint (i think) was not tighten enough. after tightening it, jerking was solved).

However, even though I am not an expert in these mechanical stuff, I think the car will need sometime to fully settle down with the engine because when every wire and hose are removed and rejoined, then tend to loose etc. so my suggestion is don't make plans assuming that everything will be settled within just 4 days and you can use it like it was. at least allocate a 6,7 days for the whole process just to make sure everything is firmly fitted before you make long trips. good luck.

Edited June 27, 2016 by ghostwriter

[tuner88]

Supra & Ghostwriter: I visited PAS this weekend and had a chat with them. They said they can do the replacing of engine + gearbox + front and rear suspension + Steering wheel within 4 days. But I personally think it won't take four days for this work, because my parts are arriving as a bulk unit, not as individual parts. i.e: engine removed from the car with gearbox and front suspension still attached to each other as it came from the factory. Rear suspension also removed as a bulk unit. It took only one day for us to dismantle the entire car in Japan (2 people involved). PAS said it will cost about 25k for this work. Looking at the quality of work they provide I think this is an okay price. What are your thoughts on this?

Tuner88: Thanks for the info machan. I agree with your point. This is a replacing work only. Only worry I have in terms of giving it to a local mechanic is safety of the parts. Because obviously will have to leave these parts at the garage for few days and knowing the unpleasant stuff that these guys do at garages, I don't think this is the best option. Saheeq and Nilantha do the replacing work as well? or just the tune ups only?

yes call me

[HB211]

Yes agree. It will anyways take few weeks to get things back to normal, I'm not in a hurry to do this, but I felt asking four days just for the replacing work is bit too much. Thanks for the valuable info and recommendations. I'm yet to hear from Replica Speed. Will update here the progress of the work.

[HB211]

Hello guys,

1st let me apologize you all for taking long time to reply to this. Was buys with some personal commitments, hence the delay.

So finally I decided to go ahead with PAS as I did not get favourable responses from other joints. My parts arrived in the last week of July and PAS did not accept the car to begin the work until 1st week of Aug as they were busy with some race events. 

However finally when the real work started they assigned two people permanently (2 very young guys) to do the work and another well experienced chap was working time to time when serious work was going on (Removing engine, wireharness, dash board etc.)

They took four days to complete the entire swapping work which included, changing almost everything inside the engine bay, refilling all the oil lines, fixing front and rear suspension setups, changing steering columns, changing dashboard (had to re-fix my old dashboard in the end as my car had some additional features like air purifier and front windshield heaters and car from JP did not have those options and did not have dashboard wiring for those options. So had to go with the old dashboard) and they did some other miscellaneous work such as cleaning break lines and disks, washing and cleaning engine bay and area where the suspension is fitted etc.

Need to say that they do a real professional work and they know what they are doing. They are equipped with ideal tools for the job and did not see any pointless chopping and hammering work going on. So thank you Supra_Natural and ghostwriter for suggesting PAS for this work.

However I felt that supervisor is no match to the qualities that other guys had and he sometimes try to move away from things quickly without proper explanations and try to come up with obvious excuses.  

In terms of their charges, even though initially the supervisor quoted about 25k, after completion all the work he said the bill is about 55k and gave the most obvious excuse “We had to put more effort than we expected and had to pay OT for the two staff”. However I agree that no one can make accurate assumptions on the exact amount of effort that they have to put in for these kind of jobs until they actually finish the work. At the end of the day they delivered a superb outcome and I’m quite happy about it. But at the same time I believe the variation of initial pricing and final cost is bit too much (I was honestly expecting to pay 35K-40K even though he quoted 25k in the beginning but not 55k ).  

After the repair, except a little stiffness in the power steering and minor miss alignment in the steering wheel I did not have any issues at all and car runs smoothly like never before.

In terms of changing other parts: changing most of the other parts such as seats, some door beadings, door upholstery, key barrels, lights, etc. was a DYI job for me and managed to do it at my place without a much hassle and didn’t have any reason to consult a mechanic or PAS for that. Can say car is in perfect nick now

So thank you everyone for suggesting me good places to do the major swapping work and again really sorry for being late to reply to this thread. Cheerz

[iRage]

This didn't happen unless there are pics.....

[Muditha420]

Pics please, always nice to see the end result if not in flesh but as an image atleast 

[HB211]

Here are some pictures guys.

This is how it looked like before the swap.

 

[HB211]

This is the car i bought from Japan.

 

Edited October 9, 2016 by HB211
Adding more pictures

[HB211]

Dismantling the car in Jp.

 

[HB211]

Swapping work going on at PAS

 

[HB211]

This is her current look after completing all the work.

 

[suharshan]

Wow a clean car !! Were you hovering around parliament grounds yesterday evening?

[HB211]

13 minutes ago, suharshan said:

Wow a clean car !! Were you hovering around parliament grounds yesterday evening?

Yes Suharshan...I was there for sometime...was waiting for a friend.

[PreseaLover]

Damn... Nice work machan... that's a clean car... 

Komi's teg inspired me to restore my current presea and this project inspires me to bring down a 2.l engine presea from japan and rebuild it here... one day I will be doing this probably in 2021... thanks for sharing the project details mate...

[Davy]

Good work! That indeed is a very clean Carina GT.  

[NRX]

Great job machan. Two thumbs up!

[asrock]

A job well done! May I know what was actually wrong with your original carina?

[Muditha420]

Quote

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by Muditha420