Hello all. I am looking into buying a second car to drive to and from work, and during the winter months. I came across a 1989 Prelude SI with 188k miles on it. Is there anything in particular to look for when buying a Prelude from this generation? Or just look at it like any other car? Thanks in advance.

 

I'm not too familiar with 3rd gens. Just make sure it has been maintained... Timing belt been replaced 2 times... If not you will need to in the next 10k miles or so. Also Water pump... oil changed.
If manual clutch good? When was it replaced... nothing out of the ordinary.. May want to run a compression test on it to see if the rings are good and head gasket... Do it wet and dry..
Pretty much the normal things that you would check with any car..

 

Believe it or not, I am being told that this car has the ORIGINAL CLUTCH? Is this even possible? I had a Civic that had 135k on it an still had the original clutch, and no problems with it.

I guess for $800 I can't go wrong even if the clutch goes. How much for a replacement clutch installed?

 

shops do it around here for ~300 CDN .. so 250 if you find somebody cheapy cheapy but beware, you get what you pay for.

 

I have never seen a clutch job for $250... that's way off. Around here it's at the least $600... You could do it yourself for around $200(parts) if you go all stock. Its pretty easy to do. Just takes a while.

 

600 dollars for a clutch job?
i dunno know about that...
especially on a 3rd gen... i think you'd be looking 3-400 including the new clutch...
i find it hard to believe that it's on the stock clutch, but be prepared to replace it when you get the car...
ask how often oil is added, 3rd gens burn alot of it...

 

I'm going to take a look at it this weekend. The kelly blue book value for a 1989 Prelude with the same milage in 'good' condition is around $1700. So I figure, even i have to replace the clutch in the next few months, i'm still ahead of the game. Right?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by flylwsi &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">600 dollars for a clutch job?
i dunno know about that...
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I have never met anyone that paid under $600 for a clutch job... A friend was quoted close to that for his CRX. I once had a Cavalier and the clutch went on it. The cheapest place I could find was $750. I called about 40 places too and that was by far the cheapest. Most where closer to $900.

 

Highly possible, my brother has a 1990 honda accord, with 275K on the original clutch, and i drove it recently, and its still quite strong for a 13/14 year old clutch with that many miles on it

 

By and large, and despite what people who don't know what they're talking about say, there's relatively little that goes wrong with these cars.

i would pull the vavle cover and check the timing belt and seals on the side for oil, because the cam sometimes get worn and leak oil on the timing belt which can cause premature failure. It can be rather easily (if not particularly cheaply, ~$400) fixed.

Also check the coolant lines that are underneath the distributor. They are really close to the block, and as such tend to not last quite as long as they should. You should be able to replace them yourself for ~$15 and some of your time.

And lastly, my favorite: The ****** 2000 rpm rattle. It's nothing bad for the engine, but it can be loud as hell and makes your car sound like a peice of ****. You can either weld it or what an old honda mechanic told me that they did when they were coming out was to dent the outer pipe enough so it rests against the inner pipe. I've done both, but for some mysterious reason they each only worked for a few weeks.

Provided it's been relatively well taken care of, they do not leak or burn oil, get pretty decent gas mileage, and ride very nicely.