I am not disagreeing with any answer here, as such.
But, over my lifetime, I have been plagued by know-it-all mechanics (fortunately not all of them, but some of them) who believe they sitteth at the right hand of God. And, whatever they believe about the value of your car (or anything else) you are supposed to, not accept their opinion, but mindlessly obey their personal opinion. They tend to get really hostile if you don’t accept their opinion.
An Acura with 168,000 miles, in good shape may have a lot of use left for your driving pattern. I have a 9 year old Sienna coincidentally also with 168,000 miles, and I expect to drive it a lot more miles. Unless something unexpected happens, until I can’t get new parts for it and have to buy rebuilt parts.
I am sure if I need to spend a couple thousand dollars on something, a lot of mechanics will say, “Not worth it. It’s too old, and isn’t worth it.”
I do not agree. Figures we have seen to keep an old car running in good shape are what? A thousand dollars a year?
It makes no sense to fork out $30,000 for a new Sienna, rather than plunk down a couple thousand dollars and keep it running well for another two years. That is, if it will run well. Mine does, and my guess is your Acura also does.
When I encounter this attitude, I do what I encourage you to do, which is get another mechanic. This one doesn’t even know how to fix the problem, which is his basic motivation. So, he also would be unable to tell you how much it would cost to fix it. That is, he really doesn’t know if it is worth fixing or not.
If on the other hand, you agree it is not worth fixing, the day you think a car isn’t worth fixing is the day to get rid of it and get another car.
There is another issue here. The car came with ABS. If you get in a wreck, any good lawyer will take you to court, and will use the voluntarily driving of a car with a known inoperative ABS as proof of your negligence and liability. Ask an attorney if you do not believe me.
Fix that ABS or junk it.