My wife and I are looking for an older Accord and we drove a 1992 EX today. It's an auto with 179K. It has the standard rust around the rear wheel wells but the paint is decent and the interior looks brand new. They are asking $2000.

The seller had every single maintenance receipt dating back to 1998 and it's been well maintained. Looking through the records, there are four areas of concern:

1) Right front coil spring is cracked
2) Oil pan gasket leak
3) Transmission line leak
4) Rear seal leak

The owner stated that there are just a few drops of oil on the ground and they don't have to add any oil between oil changes (3K miles).

Are the leaks anything to be very concerned about? Since it's Sunday and I can't contact my mechanic, does anyone have an estimate of what it would cost to fix each of the issues?

Thanks,
Dave

 

You'll end up spending more than you paid for the car.

I'd highly recommend seeing if your budget will get you into (at least) a Fifth Gen Accord ('94 - '97), they are a much better car (IMHO) (I'm somewhat partial....)

I had terrible experiences with a personal '88 Accord - couldn't keep ball joints in the thing
Corrosion too was an issue as well.

P

 

P_Adams, Thanks for the response. We're only planning to drive the car until April or May when we buy a minivan. I was hoping to find something that I can drive until then and sell for pretty much what we paid.

Dave

 

Well, put the money you's spend on this car, plus the money you'd spend to fix it and go buy the Honda* Minivan now.
The way gas prices are going you'd probably find a decent one for a reasonable price (Yeh, I know - define "Reasonable")

P

You get the idea I'm partial to Honda's?

 

We're actually going to buy a Toyota Sienna XLE or Limited. My wife isn't due with our second child until May so we're good until then.


Modified by eilros at 8:28 PM 10/22/2008

 

It sounds like you have been shopping and you may know car prices in your area, can you drive this car for 6 months, clean up the oil leaks with Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner and then sell it for near the price you paid for it next year?

I think gas prices are going to be coming down and car prices may go up by next late spring, may we ask why you are not buying the van now unless you think you can make most of your money back on this car. I do see prices going up with falling gas prices.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Duane_in_Japan &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It sounds like you have been shopping and you may know car prices in your area, can you drive this car for 6 months, clean up the oil leaks with Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner and then sell it for near the price you paid for it next year?

I think gas prices are going to be coming down and car prices may go up by next late spring, may we ask why you are not buying the van now unless you think you can make most of your money back on this car. I do see prices going up with falling gas prices.</TD></TR></TABLE>


We bought the 92 EX today for $1250. I'll probably just get the coil spring replaced and see what happens with the leaks. I have cardboard under the car and so far (4 hours) there aren't any drips. My wife will mainly drive the car to work and back so we'll only be putting on 15 miles or so a day. I'm guessing we'll put on less than 3,000 miles in the next 6 months.

We have been looking for a van for about a month and just haven't found the one we want. With the economy the way it is and since we don't absolutely need a van right now, we have decided to wait until the spring and see what happens. We were also down to just one car so we needed to get something to get us through the winter.

Thanks for the Scrubbing Bubbles advice. I hadn't heard of that before.