2001 Accent, oil pump dying after 60K miles

Hey all.

First of all let me preface this by saying I am not a car guy. The
last four-wheeled vehicle I owned was an early-70's Volvo 164, back in
'93. Since then I've only owned motorcycles, and generally do the
repairs myself coz it's easy to get to stuff.

But my lovely GF has a car, a 2001 Accent 4-door. Up until this
spring, she hardly drove it for two years, and before that it was all
highway. Now that she's started a job that requires her to spend a
few hours/30 miles in stop n go traffic every day, her car's motor has
started ticking. I took it to a reputable local shop for a free
estimate, and he said lifters are damaged and the oil pressure is
about half what it should be at idle, and low across the board.

Now, I know that oil pumps shouldn't be failing at 60K miles, and this
certainly is part of the powertrain warranty. But I doubt she's going
to be able to produce documentation that she was keeping up on the
maintenance. Her ex-husband took care of it the first few years, and
I'm taking care of it now, but there's that 3-year period in the
middle... I'm wondering if the average dealer would be a stickler
for full records in this case. It seems like it would take many years
of poor maint to make an oil pump fail, and it wouldn't be the first
thing to go if that were the case.

If they say no to a warranty fix, I'm going to try to tackle the oil
pump replacement myself, or at least think about it. The lifters can
tick away til the motor grenades (very subtle for now, hear it only
while the car is in gear, and feathering the gas pedal around idle,
with the windows rolled up, etc) for all I care, but I gotta do
something about the oil pressure for now.

So how hard is it to get to? Is it even worth my time to go to
Border's and get the Haynes manual to look at the procedure? Learned
opinions sought.

Regards
dred

> If they say no to a warranty fix, I'm going to try to tackle the oil
> pump replacement myself, or at least think about it. The lifters can
> tick away til the motor grenades (very subtle for now, hear it only
> while the car is in gear, and feathering the gas pedal around idle,
> with the windows rolled up, etc) for all I care, but I gotta do
> something about the oil pressure for now.
>
I'm not sure that the 'mechanic' you spoke with is being completely
level with you. One of my friends has a 2001 elantra and the lifters
have always been a little chatty at idle. Not just one or two, all of
them. Revving the engine 500 rpm and closing the throttle gets them to
all sound off quietly. Car has 73k on it and I have not seen any
evidence of contamination in her oil, so I don't ever mention it as
being a problem and she drives the car every day.

I guess my take on it is "If it ain't broke don't fix it".

Chris