Mitsubishi: 2000 V6 Eclipse (should I buy or not??) and timing belt.

Hi All, and happy Fathers Day!!
I am looking at a 2000 V6 Eclipse it has 43000 on it and I was wondering
what the change interval is for the timing belt (in time and or miles) as
the car is low milage, it still may be time to change the belt because of
time. They are asking $10,990.00 and told me "we are not in love with it" so
they are willing to negotiate, I figured I'd offer between 8300 (low side)
to 8900 (high side) it needs rubber on the back (front are brand new) and
probably a timing belt, and if they are like my Nissans, then you do the
water pump while you are in there too.
Next question is how hard is the timing belt for a shade tree mechanic to
do? i do a lot of work on my own cars because it seems every time I pay
someone else to do it the car comes back with another problem created by the
mechanics!! I am not new to wrench turning, just getting tired of it at
nearly 50 years old, if I could find a good mech. for reasonable money, I'd
rather pay than do it myself. Some of these car mechs. get more than I do
for setting up complex networks, and computer service, but that's OK as long
as I can do what I know how to do (in the A/C...not in my HOT
garage)..........Opinions Please, all info will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
John

On the water pump, it is just something that you do when doing a timing belt
as you are already in there and it is not an expensive part, but would be a
costly repair if you had to do it from scratch, as the labor is high to
tear it down to put it in, when it is torn down for a belt it's about 40 to
80 bucks for the part, so might as well do it while you are in there.
If you are past the timing belt interval, better go ahead and do it
especially if your engine is an "interference" engine, meaning the valves
will hit the piston tops if the valve train quits moving!

"marcusdave" <com> wrote in message
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