Hi everyone, I'm looking at a used prelude which is a CPO, but from a private owner. I ran a carfax on the car, and everything looks good with the first owner...


Year purchased 2001 2004
Type of owner Lease ---
Estimated length of ownership 2 yrs. 8 mo. 2 yrs. 7 mo.
Owned in the following states/provinces New Jersey New Jersey
Estimated miles driven per year 12,045/yr ---
Last reported odometer reading 32,423 34,466

at 6 mi. - oil lubed, filter changed

then registered as a lease vehicle

266 mi - title issued or updated, first owner reported, registered as lease vehicle

32,423 mi - Vehicle offered for sale as a CPO

Title issued, new owner reported.

34,466 mi - vehicle inspected, anti-theft device present at time of inspection

vehicle offered for sale (now with 65k miles)

Should I walk away from this car even though it's a CPO because of lack of history? There is nothing in the history from 34,466 to 65k miles. The car is stock. What does this mean? Would I be alright if I just ask for all the maintenance records, the dude says he changed oil ever 3k with synthetic, but how am I supposed to be sure? I'm bringing it to a honda dealer to have it diagnosed, they would be able to tell me if the car has been treated well right?

 

Alot of times the only time a service update is given to carfax is if the work is done at the dealership, so if he serviced it himself or jiffy turd, it wont show on the report. I'm not sure what CPO stands for, that some kind of lease return sales?

 

not everyone reports to carfax...thats why you have no record of those 30k miles. that actually normal (in my experiences). its good to find car that has been reported like they should but ive run about 50 carfax reports in my time and only like maybe 10 have had good reports. doesnt mean the car is bad just alot of people dont report EVERYTHING to carfax.

 

Thanks! So no worries if it checks out at the dealer diagnosis? I apologize about the CPO, I meant Certified Pre-Owned WHat about inspection, registration updates?


Modified by ames905 at 12:57 PM 9/26/2006

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ames905 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Thanks! So no worries if it checks out at the dealer diagnosis? I apologize about the CPO, I meant Certified Pre-Owned WHat about inspection, registration updates?
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If it's CPO, then it was inspected and certified for sale by a Honda dealer. Looks like a clean history, but get it checked just to make sure.

 

Yea, I hope it comes out clean. The only twist is that the car was certified at 34k miles, now the second owner put the extra 3x,000 miles on it, so basically I'm just paying a premium for the warranty, not the inspection, rigorous testing that a true CPO car gets, right? If the offered price is around 13k, what do you think is a reasonable offer I should make considering this car is certified pre-owned, base, 5 spd ( the exterior is ding-free, clean, and the interior is very clean, I will get an engine shot up as well); however, it was certified 3x,000 miles ago...I hope that is understandable. Thanks again guys....

 

As long as the 2nd owner has kept up on the scheduled maintenance on the car, I don't see why this isn't a great car.

65k miles is barely breaking it in!

 

well, I would like to say thank you to everyone who helped me. I just got off the phone, I was supposed to meet this dude tomorrow at 7 am to have a honda guy look at it, we had some long talks and I felt like we became almost friends... and it turns out another person just dropped off 7 grand on a deposit for the car, so the owner canceled on me. Well, I'm really tired of this, it took me a while to find this and I feel horrible right now. I don't know how to make any good out of this and I'm trying to decide if the prelude was in fact worth all that effort... I thought this would be a great oppotunity to find a nice 4th gen, but none are around ...not that I have seen....

 

from what i know now....if i had it to do over again

i would just look for a (4th gen) cheap prelude s with a good body and use the extra money for a jdm h22 swap with lower miles

 

thanks silver, that does sound like an awesome idea, but I am definitely no mechanic, and I'm not gonna pretend I know a thing about engines, although I do plan on taking a mechanics class soon. I wouldn't even know where to start...thank you again though, I know where you are coming from.