Hello all,

I'm new to the forum. Am in the market for a 2003-4 Accord, 5spd and was actually looking at an 03 LX that a coworker is selling. I took it into a dealership for a prepurchase inspection and they found a couple of things wrong with it.

1. Bad cat & o2 sensor. P code shows non-standard catalytic converter.
a. Honda says it will always set off the CEL, regardless of if something is wrong or not.
b. My take is that it’s a high flo cat and so it’s tripping the downstream o2 sensor.
2. Shifting is very hard.
a. Honda says that it’s a major issue with the transmission, possibly pressure plate or clutch, cost $1500-2000.
b. Symptoms I see is I have to have the clutch all the way in the floor, to shift. If I’m sitting at a traffic light, clutch it and put it in gear (1st) and sit and wait, it seems to start to engage, then I push down on the clutch further and it goes away. So I think it needs adjustment, if I let off that pedal even ¼” it hits the friction point (it seems). I mentioned that to Honda, they said it’s not as simple as an adjustment.

Would appreciate any feedback. This guy has been driving the car for a year with the CEL coming on intermittently with no issues, no change in fuel consumption or anything.

I’m not very handy, so I won’t be doing a lot of work on it myself but I definitely have experience on driving a stick, I’ve got 270K Miles on my original owned 99 Passat with the original clutch. Still a lot easier to drive than this accord but the Accord is 4 year newer, mint condition and it’s only a young 170K miles 

I would appreciate any thoughts/advice on buying this car!

Thanks,

Kevin