I am a college student looking at the 94-97 year Accord and am looking to spend some $$ on a low mileage <100mi accord 4cyl auto tranny. Any of these year better than others for reliability/repair costs?

oh yeah, and a car with 100k or less, what maintenace should be done? timing belt and ???
anything to look for like maybe CV joints goin bad?

thanks

 

I guess it depends on what your budget is. Buy the car and the rest you can put back into the car. Tune up, cv joints, timing belt, water pump, tires.

 

well, i have an auto trans available, and i am in NorCal.

and with your car, follow the service manual for the 90k service, and possibly include the timing belt if it hasn't been done to your knowledge.
your CVs will let you know when they are bad, but it's never a bad idea to crawl underneath and have a poke at the boots just to make sure.

 

I'd recommend a 94 or 95. They're obd1 so you won't have to deal with a lot of obd2 related check lights - emissions related in particular. Other than that, everything else is pretty much the same.

One thing I noticed the other day though. On my 95 sedan, my trunk uses gas shocks to support it - keeping the trunk clear of folding down arms and springs which can hit whatever's in the trunk (if it's jam packed). On my girlfriend's 96 sedan, she has the old style springs. Weird... I like mine much better

 

I have a 95 accord , and my cv joints have gone before, you will notice when they go because when you turn you'll hear this loud clicking noise, i would get it checked out at that point and you can always go under your car and grab them to see if they move, good luck

 

Your biggest concern should be the auto transmission. !!!!

 

True about the auto tranny. I'd perfer manual over auto because they are quicker and if you drive auto trannys hard, some problem may arise.

Caleb

 

Many Honda Auto Trans problems arise regardles of how the are driven. I know I own one. If you need an Auto trans look at Toyota's.

 

I beg to differ on the tranny. When I did my H22 swap with turbo, I waited a while to swap my auto tranny over to 5sp. My auto tranny had about 82000 ragged miles on before I got rid of it, and I had no problems at all.

 

cant go wrong with honda but I would recommend a manual trans, auto trans make me worry that there gonna blow up. Auto Manual

 

I have a manual in my 1992 Honda Accord and I can accerlerate faster than the equivlent to my car with an auto. Plus it is more fun and you can play harder.... So I reconmend the manual swap


BTW, my car has 203,500 miles with original engine and tranny and runs just good.

 

97s have less recalls then the previous years

How bad is it, if you drive hard on an automatic transmission? for example flooring it, down shifting from d 4 to d3 to red line?

what problems could arise?

 

Well... I never personally owned an automatic Honda, but I have driven my mom's Honda hard every now and then. You can almost count on the automatics to fail when driven with full force. The reason being is that Honda never designed these tranny's (Both auto and manual) to be driven hard, but the manual is definately stronger.

Caleb

 

You can count on them to fail no matter how they are driven period.

 

you guys make it sound like manuals dont break.

 

I have a 97 with automatic and it is one of the smoothest autos I have owned. It has 117,000 and was never serviced until I purchased it at 113,000. I think the 98+ transmissions have had lots of problems. I think 95-97 is a good buy in a used car and all reports are they should be very dependable according to consumers reports.

 

maybe.....

 

how come car consumer rates 98+ honda accord transmissions high? it doesn't make sense

do the TLs have the same problems

 

I swore by standard trannys for over a decade, then i moved to a city with 4 million people where you stop every 20 feet, it takes 45 mins to go a mile, driving standard sucks ***....

Id go with the 97 in auto, thats exactly what i am looking at trading my car in for!