New owner & new member... 1st maint questions

I bought my daughter a '97 ES in November and have been lurking here since to get info about the car. It has 132k mi and other than some minor dents and scratches, it looks good. It also runs pretty well, but I am beginning to address that.

I immediately changed the oil with Mobil 1 and the oil and air filters with Purolator Pure One's. I am now ready to begin a tune-up. I just ordered NGK V-power plugs and wires from sparkplugs.com and a cap and rotor from Mitsubishiparts.com (great prices and service btw). I am also going to change: the fuel filter, p/s fluid (using the turkey baster method), coolant (switching to Zerex G05), and I will have a transmission flush and fill along with dropping the pan and changing the filter (using SPIII). I also plan on having the timing belt changed at a later date. Not knowing the service history, I want to do as many preventive maintanence things as possible... within reason ($$$).

Any ideas on other "minor" things I should do to the car? Keep in mind that I'm no mechanic and know just enough to be dangerous. Anything too involved will have to be done by my mechanic and therefor cost more.

Also, where are the best places on the underbody to place the jack and jackstands? I don't want to pull a dumb and either damage something or have it drop.

Thanks for your help!!! Lots of good info here so far.

Well, I have already done an oops lifting my car. I put it ubder the rear "lift point" and well now my backseat floor has a DSM speed hump. Anyways, all around I would suggest right under the suspension points, like in the back rigth around the rear axle area and the frot I would suggest at the bottom of the shocks, I believe there shocks at least.

Check the brake lines (rear especially), the DSM speed hump adventure taught me all about nearly losing all hydraulic fluid.

Looks like you got alot of things covered already. I would do a nice throttle body cleaning to help rid some of the carbon buildup in the throttle body and intake manifold area and I would add some good fuel injecter cleaner either Lucas or BG products into your fuel system to clean those injectors. When you change you timing belt replace the front seals (Cam, Crank, oil pumps seals) , replace your water pump too. When you do your radiator flush might as well replace the thermostat before you fill the system back up.

Things to look for under the car is any leaks and try to trace them to the source. Check your CV axels boots...if they are cracking, I would have them replaced and you can save some $$$ by saving the CV axle. If they are busted and all the lube inside the boots are gone...its safe to say contamination of the axel joint are bad and you will have to replace the whole CV axle.

Good Luck 8)

also when you change the air filter go ahead and change the PCV valve, alot of people miss that little thing but trust me it helps when you change it, not many people know about it and never change it

I am going to replace the pcv also, forgot to mention that (thanks for the reminder). A little leary on the throttle body cleaning, but I think I remember seeing it in the factory service manual that I got from this site. I also forgot to mention that I ran a bottle of Techron Concentrate through at the first oil change and run a maintanence dose of Marvel Mystery Oil at every fill-up.

As for the timing belt, a rough estimate on the cost with and without all the seals and water pump, anyone? How about for the suspension work mentioned? I want to get this car into excellent condition so that it lasts a long time, but I'm going to have to pick my battles carefully as I don't have a ton of money to throw at it quickly (daughter starts college next year).

Thanks for the help so far... I'm planning on doing the tune-up this weekend and will post how the car is running.

belt changing is a deff.

Update: changed out the plugs and wires this weekend and the idle immediately went up about 200 rpm (from 500 to 700). Much smoother and now in spec... according to the fact serv manual. The new cap and rotor just came yesterday so I'll get that on this coming weekend.

I do need some more info. While doing the work and poking around the engine compartment, I noticed a small rubber hose hanging near the ground. I followed it to, what I think is, the evap canister. It's near the right-front wheel well. There is a line coming from the canister that goes into a plastic "T-fitting" then two lines come out, one of which is hooked up and the other dangling near the ground. Does anyone know what I'm looking at here and where it should be connected. The car seems to be running fine, but I'd like to know what the heck it is. I am going to hunt through the manual to try and figure it out.

well the evap cannister has to vent.. ill pull mine in here later to day and compair it to what u described.. but im pretty sure its vent.. should also be a rubber hose that goes almost to the ground from the collent over flow bottle

The coolant overflow hose is what I thought when I first saw it dangling, but I traced it to the canister. The canister looks almost like an old coffee can or something.

Looking through the manual, it looks like it might be part of the fuel/emissions system. Possibly going to either the tank pressure control valve or to the fuel tank (from a diagram I found).

I'll try and figure out how to post the diagram from the manual.

Here's the diagram. Hopefully it turns out alright.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j9...apcanister.jpg