Urlryn

Howdy!

You guys have helped me fix a few things on my sorta recent second Prelude purchase. Just a little info on the history of the car before i get into the meat of the problem.

I owned a 1988 Prelude up till about year and half a ago. This car was a work horse and well cared for up till it hit about 280K+ miles and needed the engine replaced and such. Decided it was time to get a new one. After 3 month of looking around I found a 2001 Gen 5 Purple Prelude local here with only 45k miles on it. Checked it out and for the most part looked very good. Even looks like the previous owner added a couple minor aftermarket stuff (muffler and such).

Here is my personal webserver with pictures of it so you guys can check it out (and one of them shows my poor ole 88 lude too!)
http://www.sunshadow.org/honda/

So everything was going well till I hit around the 7 or 8k mile marker for me. The transmission was going out. Great. Lucky for me I did have extended warranty. So it got replaced.

Then the gas gauge stopped working and now it sits on full all the time...occasionally it drops down but usually a bump in the roads sends it back up.

Then the right door lock/handle broke and had to be replaced.

Had to replace all 4 tires after one of them had a blow out on me.

Roughly about 6k miles later the TPS Sensor went out and you guys helped me get that fixed very cheaply and quickly.

Then I had to get several leaks fixed. The CVBoots were leaking and several different gaskets had leaks as well.

Now I'm at a crossroads...I'm nearing my warranty's 30k miles limit. I now have a total of 66k miles on this car. I typically only drive 20 miles a day during the week and a couple trips a month out of town.

The check engine light is now on and the Honda dealership is saying its a ECG system (i think thats what its called) and they need to replace these clogged ports or something along those lines. Which is gonna cost around 500 dollars.

My front brakes and rotors need replacing and thats gonna be around 400 dollars max I would think.

I'm also having them check the gas gauge since thats should be under the warranty still but I still have to pay the diagnostic cost which is typically 80 dollars.

But all in all you guys are probably seeing what i'm getting at....its one thing after another with repairs on a car I haven't had for 30k miles yet. 3rd transmission replacement and things going wrong all the time. Is this just a run of bad luck? is it going to continue? I imagine many of you are pretty good mechanics and can fix alot of this stuff your self cheaply and easily and wouldn't blink twice about most of these types of issues. I'm on the other hand am not a mechanic...i'm just a computer geek. So what you guys can do with cars i can do with computers!

I'm looking for some input from you guys, who have been very helpful, and figure out if its going to be worth keeping this car or should I trade it in and cut my losses?

Urlryn

catacon

Well, with having the auto in there, you're probably going to continue to have problems. If you're not up to having to fix things yourself or don't what to spend money to get things fixed, then sell it. They're great cars, but some (especially the autos) have their issues and some people are not up to dealing with them. Obviously any car you get is going to need work, new brakes, for example, is something that you will always need to get, but some cars require more work then others. It might be in your best interest to get another that doesn't require as much maintenance.

Urlryn

Yeah...I am not really venting about the brakes or the normal maintenance type stuff. You are right cars will need them and I've always been good about that. Why my 88 lude lasted me so long.

Was just a progression of problematic things one after another and with the warranty ending soon I'd hate to be left with a lot of the bills now. It just seems odd that a car that just hit the 60k miles is having so many issues. Especially the 3 transmissions replacements now.

Urlryn