What does it say about the dealers used car reconditioning?
At many dealerships, the “reconditioning” of a trade-in will consist of detailing the paint, vacuuming the interior, spraying the interior with some kind of deodorizer, and maybe changing the motor oil.
My impression is that the shop did only some bare necessity items. I strongly suggest that you familiarize yourself with the owner’s manual recommended maintenance schedule and have everything else brought up to date also ASAP. There are a whole list of items like belts, coolant, tranny servicing, etc. that should all be addressed.
No car can be relied upon to go this far without servicing. Any that does is living on borrowed time.
This is a legendary Honda Dealer
ok so they’ll CHECK the motor oil before they put it up for sale
The worst cars I’ve ever owned were Japanese (Toyota and Mazda). Look around the roads and highways of your town…lots of 15+ year old American cars and relatively few Japanese ones (and they’re easy to spot because their styling is so bizarre). Wonder why that is, if Japanese technology is so great?
Did you read the owner’s manual that came with the car? That manual would tell you about oil changes and other maintenance items. You should first of all tell this panel what you actually did to the car by way of maintenance.
To partly answer your question, in 1998 no one used iridium spark plugs in their new cars. The 1998 plugs were good for about 60,000 miles. The new iridium plugs will go about 120,000 miles before the engine start missing and running rough. So your Honda had its spark plugs replaced at some time in the past with the Honda orignal type plugs. Your father in law’s mechanic is not lying, he just assumed the plugs in the car were original.
The mechanic is right; your car needs a tuneup, since you appeared to have not performed ANY maintenance since you bought the car.
At your current mileage, you are driving a time bomb from a maintenance point of view. If you gave me your car (I would be reluctant to pay anything) I would be doing the following:
- Change timing belt, tensioners and water pump.
- Spark plugs, probably wires, and fuel system inspection
- Oil and filter change
- Cooling system flush and all hoses inspected.
- If automatic, change transmission fluid.
- Change air filter and inspect PCV system
- Inspect brakes, repair if necessary and change brake fluid.
- Check all under hood belts and hoses; replace where necessary.
- Check steering and suspension, including power steering pump.
As stated, American cars are getting close in quality to the better Japanese cars. They also need regular maintenance, and can go 400,000 miles before they are worn out.
The price of all these items maintenance is about $900+ at an independent garage; more at a Honda dealer. Not doing these will soon result in abour $3500 in transmision rebuild, another $2500-$3500 for engine repairs due to timing belt failure, etc.
When the above happens you will likely send us a post asking why Japanes cars break down so soon and are so expensive to repair.
Like your teeth, all cars need maintenance. Your car has the potential to last 400,000 miles with regular maintenance (my brother has a 1987 Accord). The way you operate it, you will be lucky to get 200,000 miles before very major breakdowns happen.
If the selling dealer changed the oil and filter it IS POSSIBLE that OP drove it that far without changing the oil, and only topping it up. Various “run to destruction” tests show a non-sludging car engine will go about 60,000 miles before it seizes up due to oil starvation and varnish/sludge plugging oil passages. OP only has 13,000 miles to go!
When you buy a car at 123K miles you have an unknown as to previous service. If the earlier owners left records in the glove box and notations in the vehicles owner’s or maintenance manuals you may get an idea if it was serviced properly or not.
If you get no notes and/or service receipts then you know nothing. Plugs could have been changed (using the same as OEM plugs) or not. Can a modern plug go 170K miles? Yes, but not without showing significant wear. The cars computer can compensate for increasing plug gap and wear and keep the car running fine.
An American car, European car, or Japanese car might do the same as you are reporting. Cars are not all the same. Some people buy a GM car that thousands have been good, and they get a lemon. Or you could have that miracle Accord. One example either way does not tell the story of what is the norm.
Math is such a universal language and most auto companies are so interconnected that it’s really not the engineers of GM or Toyota that determine what you’ll get for tech. in your Malibu of Camry. It’s the lawyers and the bean counters.
As we speak, production of first generation Prius hybrid hardware is being geared up at both Toyota and GM common suppliers to use in more car lines on GM cars than now.
That’s the kind of decision that gets the US govt. monitors of our bailout funds PO’d as GM proposes to eliminate jobs on one hand while they take tax payer dollars from their own workers and the rest of us with the other.
At the same time Toyota delays the installation of it’s next generation battery (already sitting on their shelf for safety issues ?) in the next plug-in Prius, so people don’t get the idea too soon they can go all week and commute w/o ever using gas till the weekend trip to grandmothers house. You can believe that if Toyota has the technology, GM does as well.
It’s here now, available to all carmakers, and on the verge of driving the spark plug makers right out of business; but not if the lawyers and bean counters have anything to say about it.
All the while, the rest of us refuse to believe that the technology is here and cost effective…people that believe that have to be retired lawyers and bean counters. We remain at the height of gullibility and keep spouting “their” press releases as fact here and elsewhere in order to save the spark plug and the accelerated loss of jobs.
That is the quandary we are in…
In my opinion, where many of the Japanese cars, when new, is in the first impression. The interior seems well finished, the exterior panels line up well, and so on. Right now, I have a 2003 Toyota 4Runner and a 2006 Chevrolet Uplander. The 4Runner gives a better first impression. On the other hand, the 4Runner, which I purchased new had a very annoying sqeaking serpentine belt. Trips to the dealer amounted to the belt being replaced each time, but the problem would surface again after a couple of days. At one visit, the technician didn’t install the belt correctly and the oil seal behind the crankshaft pullley was pulled out. When we took it back, I informed the dealer that if he didn’t solve the problem he could buy it back. We had only had the car for a month. The dealer finally traced it down to a defective belt tensioner and the car has been fine since. However, it gets serviced at an independent shop. On the other hand, I’ve had no problems with the 2006 Uplander. The Chevrolet dealer has done most of the servicing and the dealer service has been great and the charge for an oil change at the Chevrolet dealer is less than that of my independent shop.
I guess you “pays your money and takes your chances” no matter whether the name on the car is an Asian manufacturer or a U.S. manufacturer.