So my search for a first gen CR-V started with autos, but then I considered that if/when the auto craps out I'd be stuck with only reman options (JDM ones throw codes and I have to pass emissions) that are at least $1,100.00 in my area.

...so I drove a 5-speed 1998 last night, and am going to drive a 5-speed 2001 today. Both are RT4WD.

The rundown:

The 1998 is clean as hell, but will need some stuff to make it solid. It has new A/C compressor (can see it) and owner claims new clutch and hydraulics - hydraulics do look as if they could be recent. also has new timing side and rear mounts. Rear diff is noisy in u-turns, so i'm hoping a Dual Pump fluid change will correct it.

Front end feels loose like most of them do, so I've priced out upper and lower control arms with bushings, lower balljoints, new shocks, swaybar end link bushings, and trailing arm bushings (I know those are rear LOL). Will also need tires. It has a power moonroof that is extremely high quality - looks like it would be OEM - but it worries me if it ever gave problems, because nobody would touch that bitch. The crankshaft pulley is also wobbly and looks to be the harmonic balancer ring separating. I told seller last night I would not drive the car home 40 miles, and that I'd either tow of have Honda dealer right down the road from him install one before I take it home.

The 1998 has ZERO RUST.

The 2001 is of course newer, and has B20Z engine with +20hp. It is supposed to have a flawless interior as well. It also has brand new 18'' wheels/tires including spare! (not my cup of tea, but they're not bad actually), new H&R 1.5'' lowering springs, new KYB shocks, freshly aligned, Nice head unit, speakers, new tint with warranty, comes with stock wheels w/80% tread tires, new tie rods, and has no rear diff noise. It does have a shitty rear bumper, and owner says some slight dings in hood. Paint looks great in pics.

The 2001 apparently has surface rust in rear fender wells, and I've not yet seen under vehicle or under hood to see if there is rust in the usual spots.

I've not driven the 2001 model yet - going today. If it drives solidly and needs no additional work mechanically (suspension, leaks, etc.) this will be a tough choice between the two.

The 1998 has 20K fewer miles too, and it will cost me $2,200.00 LESS than the 2001. After I tally up all the things that I'd need for the 1998 to be up to the 2001's specs (not talking about engine LOL) I got about $1,500.00 worth of parts. I can do most of the labor for free, but it will take some time getting all the parts and doing all the swapping - I've got a newborn so that might be tough.

So cliff notes/bottom line:

Do I buy a rust free 1998 that needs work, or go for the 2001 that has slight surface rust in places that needs nothing? 2001 would end up costing about $700.00 more (after factoring in work needed for 1998 model) but would not require me to lift a finger/take time fixing it up.

Lastly I'll say that buying the 2001 will be at the VERY limit of my budget, and will leave me with ZERO funds to fix anything on it that might need it for a few months. Buying the 1998 leaves me very comfy with budget, but will require some man hours to replace all the stuff needed to make it a super solid handling daily driver.

Thoughts?

 

I rather fix something mechanical then rust... body work is more expensive then a bushing. ! i said go with the rust free and at the end you would have a clean body and new suspensions !

 

Sounds like the 98 is the ticket Tom.

That, and you can probably beat the seller up more on price because of all the issues...

 

Yeah I would definitely say the 98. You don't want to be stuck with rust. Even if it is only a few spots right now, it will spread.

 

Well after talking to a few people very familiar with B20 engines they both said the wobbly crank pulley sounds bad. Neither have ever seen the harmonic balancer separate, but both said it's likely wobbly on the crank snout...

...so the crankshaft might be damaged. I know it might be able to be welded/refiled, but if it needed an engine I could not afford it and all the other stuff the car needs.

I'm meeting the guy with the black one (cash in hand, spare wheels already loaded in vehicle, etc.) but told him if the rust is bad it's a deal breaker. If it is literally limited to the wheel wells in the rear, and has not bubbled through paint it will be hard to turn down.

I'll post updates...

 

Keep in mind there are no replacement body panels for these.

 

id go w/ the 98model.. less problems = less headaches in the long run, since your a honda guy,
the mechanical issues will be a walk in the park for you... also if this will be your daily driver
the body condition is a plus for me, as said body repairs/parts for our Vs are a bit hard to source
or repair unlike the mechanical side... its easy as if theyre almost everywhere..LOL!

if your planning in doing some mods in the future especially FI, the low compression b20 of the
98 model is a good candidate... good luck, keep us updated!

**one thing for me, for some reason i get a good vibe everytime a test drive a car thats really
meant for me... :-)

 

Ya unless the rusty one is just barely surface only rust, then IMO keep looking.

You know TJ is now a manager at Curry Honda right?

Maybe he can cut you a deal also.

 

Sooooo...

I drove about a hour south to meet up with the guy with black CR-V.

The interior is literally as if it was off the showroom floor, and I am not exaggerating. Black R knows me personally, and he knows I am a picky ****. The window tint was flawless, badass head unit, great speakers - I mean sitting inside this bitch I've NEVER sat in a cleaner vehicle besides brand new cars - literally.

The vehicle drove well, rode great, and from 50 feet looked absolutely stunning...

...but it was eaten up with rust.



Rear wheels wells were bubbling through, and plastic fender arch trims were barely hanging on. Every nut and bolt under the hood was rusted badly, the front calipers were flaky rusty, etc. etc.

So I told the guy I'd have to sleep on it, but I'll probably call him tonight and tell him I just can't live with the rust. He has literally every receipt for the car, showed me the bill of sale, has lifetime rotate/balance on newer 18'' wheels/tires, etc. and had title in his name all ready to go - the guy is the ost stand up seller I've encountered, for real. He would be literally taking a $2,500.00 hit after we discussed him coming down $1,000.00 on his asking price. He too struggled with the rust when he bought the car about a year ago, but decided it wasn't bad enough to not buy it...I guess I just can't make that same decision.

On my way home I called the guy with the 1998...and he sold it.



My wife said there's a reason the 1998 is gone. I must say the guy with the 1998 was really pushy about it, and acted odd when asked about the title. Said he didn't have time to transfer title to his name, etc. He really didn't "know" about the car - said he bought it from a friend to simply resell. I also noticed that the oil change sticker said "201,000" for the next service due, but odo read 155,000 - WTF?

The 1998 was stupid clean though. I feel like I really missed out, and ultimately because the guy with the black one didn't just come out and say "the rust is REALLY bad" and I wasted time looking at it rather than towing the 1998 home (since the crank pulley was wobbly.)

...so the hunt is still on. If I cannot find one soon enough, or if I drive 40+ miles to look at literally numbers 8 and 9 and they suck ***, I'll probably just do something to our house with the money. It sucks *** because I really thought I had two great options to choose from.

My current DD is f'ing awesome still:



...and the kids are always safe in this thing if we go somewhere:



Ultimately I'd consider selling my one of a kind wagon if I got a CR-V up to par. I think the 1998 was actually a touch "peppier" than the 2001 if only for the 2001 having 18'' wheels/tires. It's hard to beat my wago's zero blowing emissions, 32mpg, and excellent ride even though it has a B18B swap and it sits so low, but if I could get a CR-V nice and tight it might push me to sell.

Oh wells...back to the drawing board.

 

I just recently picked up a 01 CRV with 85k miles that was about 2gs over my budget but it was clean as hell. I thought about it for a long time and figured it's just not worth it to save a few bucks and I'll probably end up spending almost the same on parts and repairs if I went for a cheaper one so I bought the CRV that was over my budget. Good luck with your purchase.

 

I also looked at tons of CRVs before I found this one and just had to have it so I coughed up the extra cash =T.

 

Yeah man every CR-V I've driven (except the rusty clean black one LOL!) had an "uneasy" loose feeling from the front end, so when I'm looking at them I have already figured up how much replacing all the front end suspension parts will run me including:

Front upper control arms with bushings/balljoint built in
Front lower ball joints
Inner and outer tie rods
Shocks
Sway bar end links

That stuff is about $450.00, and then add to that rear shocks (I'd not just do two LOL) and likely rear trailing arm bushings - $200.00 or so - and I pretty much look at any asking price plus $700.00 or so, plus a day to replace all that stuff and align.

People also tend to grossly exaggerate condition of tires too.

Ultimately I can slowly fix all the mechanical stuff, but it's harder to de-nasty interiors and deal with crappy paint and body issues.

 

Why get a crv anyway?

Would you sell one of those other vehicles if you had found and purchased a crv?

I say rt4wd convert your wagon!

 

The Element stays - period. It has the most rear legroom; more than most vehicles have for front leg room with seats all the way back. This makes it PERFECT for rear facing infant seat, which we will have for quite some time to come.

The wagon is awesome, but it is a bit cramped if the family needs to pile in. If any work needs to be done to the Element, etc. we're stuck riding in the wago. I'm just used to having three cars. If one goes down, even for non critical stuff like A/C, etc, we are covered.

If I found some holy grail CR-V, or a dirt cheap, rust free fixer upper, then got super attached to it it could eventually displace the Civic Wagon. I will say that at one point I had a few buyers for my Civic wagon, and I can sell it for what my utmost budget is for a first gen CR-V. That would pretty much end up being a straight trade in the event I found the wago to be expendable.



Besides, we sold our 2011 Fit to make way for a first gen CR-V.

 

Too bad your not closer, I would seriously consider trading you for that EF wagon.

 

i'm glad the 98 sold on you. no offense. but any hint of title issues would send me running away from a car. and a wobbly crank pulley? wtf?

and rust is just bad. you'll never be able to sell it, as it'll get worse every year you keep the car, but how long can you safely keep it? headache you don't need. and i can assure you, that thing was probably unsafe. my crv is 100% rust free. or so i thought. once i started cutting panels off for the mods, it's there. honda chassis rust is like black mold, if you can see it, it's too late.

sounds like you fell in love with these two. keep looking, and don't get your heart into anything. gotta do this 100% rationally. i know up here in the mid-atlantic/northeast crv's are popping up like ef's did in the early 2000s. everyone and their mother has one and they are riding around for sale everywhere and sitting on every lot. you'll find a good one. might look at 50 **** ones first though.

 

Yeah I know in many parts of the country rust is rampant on Hondas, but there are 100% rust free Hondas out there.

My 1990 EF wagon is absolutely 100% rust free - period. It came from So Cal originally, and has been in GA since. If a car is never subjected to road salt or beachy/salty air and rain why would it rust?

My mom bought a 1990 Civic STD hatch brand new in late 1989, and when I sold that car back in 2007 or so it had ZERO rust, and that car was never garaged in its life.

Problem in GA is the massive amounts of transplant people and their rusty cars. Also plenty of people will say "rust free" and have no idea of the fender well/under car rust a vehicle has.

I'm looking for a CR-V to be this clean when I pop the hood:





The first one is my old 1991 Civic DX hatch - again no rust. The second is my 1990 Civic wagon - again no rust. I mean if I can find +20 year old cars rust free I can find a rust-free CR-V that is 7-11 years newer...

Yeah I'm not ready to give up the wago yet.



Only if I first bought a CR-V and loved it enough to let go of my wago. The wago is quite literally THE perfect DD as it is pretty quick with an amazingly strong LS swap, rides smooth even sitting low (thanks to full Eibach Pro Street threaded body coil-overs), has cold A/C, hot heat, nice stereo, Integra brakes, blows zeros on emissions, etc.

 

Well the thing is I had a gut feeling about the guy selling it, but I could have been wrong. He said he got it from a friend to sell it, and I got the impression that his name wasn't on the title. I was hoping a CarFax and a call to the DMV could clear that up...

Now that it's gone I'll give you a better idea of what the vehicle was:

1998 Clover Green CR-V with ZERO rust. Interior was absolutely immaculate except for the head liner which was sagging towards the rear - no doubt from the addition of the different head liner added when the power moonroof was added years ago. Paint was extremely clean with literally two dings on the entire vehicle. Headlights looked almost new, but were OEM Stanleys - this looked like a lifetime garage-kept vehicle.

The guy was asking $3,100.00. That is a freaking steal. I was actually calling the guy back to get the VIN to get a CarFax ran, so any odo concerns and title issues might have been sorted out before I actually forked over cash.

The wobbly crank pulley looked like a separating harmonic balancer. $40.00 from a local importer. If the pulley was wobbling on the crank a former co-worker has welded his own up and filed it back down for the key way, and absolute worst case a $750.00 JDM engine would have solved that concern.

I really feel like I missed out on the best CR-V I've seen so far. I think in the end if I get one I will pay way more, and it will still need the regular stuff like all new front end parts, rear diff service, and tires.

I'll keep you guys posted. Likewise if anyone sees a manual CR-V for sale in/near Georgia please message me.

 

I know you're not looking at the one with the wobbly crank pulley anymore (which would definitely scare me), but I actually have seen one come apart from the rubber deteriorating in the middle on my friend's 90' Accord. We just bought a new one from O'Reilly's and slapped it on and it has been good as new. So that might not have been a potential problem. But either way, great job inspecting the car and spotting something like that. A lot of people would never catch that.

 

I'm not gonna lie i was on craigslist eye balling one. But i've spent too much time and money on my CRV now to let her go.

I wish I could help you out man. There are literally 30 CRVs on craigslist right now that would serve your purpose and 100% rust free. AZ ftw

Happy hunting

 

that definitely sets off the red flags in my head. calling the dmv should fix it though.. but i hope GA dmv are more helpful than the asses here at the MVA! lol did you see the guy in gdd being sued because he sold a crv as "for parts only" and they maaco'd it and sold it as inspection ready with his name still on the title?

fwiw: the rear quarters are f'd from the factory for rust. you should see the rusted **** i cut out (instead of rolling, i just cut, pull inners, weld, seam seal because i'm planning to tub it). it was actually rusted inside the quarter. there are odd gaps and things in the rear fenders and front fender stays that aren't present on civics. (you should see the dirt that came out from inside the body between the interior pans and the inner fenderwell and quarters. wtf honda) otherwise there isn't a rusted bolt on the entire car.

you can feel the bubbles running your hand across the top of the rear quarter lip behind the trim if it's there. unseeable is that behind the front fender stays and at the very front of the rear fender trim. guess that's what we get for having a 96-00 civic chassis which is seemly modded as an afterthought.

anyway, i'm sure there'll be plenty more to pop up on the net.

btw, you going to paint this one silver? lol

 

HAHA not if I find a silver one first!

If I had to put the colors in order from most to least favorite it'd be:

1. Silver
2. White
3. Clover Green
4. Submarine Blue
5. Gold (SE auto only from what I've seen...poop)
6. Black
7. Red
8. Electron Blue Pearl (blurple)

Black and red are so far down the list because EVERY one I see looks like ****. Red is usually faded pink, and black is swirl mark city if not peeling clear coat...

 

lol

mine's black and i can attest to the paint quality. i don't see how any could've made it all these years and look good, and it seems all i've done is add swirl marks despite my best efforts... and we all know about milano pink err.. red.

there is a white one up by my gf's old apartment that had to have been an insurance job during the early 2000s.. it's so incredibly clean it makes me mad.

 

I was gonna say shouldn't number 7 be pink?

 

man that sucks you cant find one. i just upgraded from a wagon to a crv too. but i had to wait forever to find the right crv had to be 5 speed awd for the right price but i managed to find one. now its time to sell the wagon but its gona be hard.