Honda makes reliable cars and that was a good era for cars in general, pre-OBD II designs are not as complicated. Considerably easier to diagnose, service, and repair for a diy’er. But $3800 is too much to ask in my opinion. On idea, make them an offer. No harm done. See what the Kelly blue book price is for this car in a private party sale, in excellent condition. I’d guess around $1500. If you want to buy it, offer them a cash price of $1700, they might well take it. I definitely wouldn’t pay more than $2000, were I the one doing the shopping.
Edit: As is usually recommended here, make the offer contingent on an inspection by your own mechanic.
@GeorgeSanJose yeah I think will go down and see if I could talk them down on the price… If not then I’ll just walk away no harm done. I checked out kelly blue book and private seller was around $1300-1500 depending on condition. I just love the look of these accords compared to the newer ones haha
“in general, pre-OBD II designs are not as complicated. Considerably easier to diagnose, service, and repair for a diy’er.”
Say what . . . ?!
When cars were OBD1, every manufacturer was using his own set of fault codes, and there were several different methods to retrieve the codes
Blink codes
count the sweeps of the meter needle
etc.
Then you had to find out what code 31 meant, for example
Not to mention all the manufacturers had different data link connectors, if you want to hook up a scan tool or code reader
I happen to have the opposite opinion, as far as “diagnose” goes. OBD2 has a standardized data link connector. The codes are pretty much universal. P0301 will always be misfire cylinder 1. P0171 will always be lean bank 1. Doesn’t matter who the manufacturer is.
As far as service and repair, it depends on the specific car(s)
$3,800 is ridiculous. Bear in mind that a car of this age has virtually none of the safety features (especially airbags) that we’ve come to take for granted over the past 20 years, which should probably be enough to disqualify it. For $6,000, you could probably get something decent from 2000 to 2005 that would be much safer and more modern.
I don’t understand how the car can be considered as a “New used” car, this car is 25 years old. Vehicles of this age enter into the special interest category. While most people see no value in an old Honda some people may be drawn to a clean original Accord like this.
Unless you parents are going to paint the local Honda club name on the rear window I would suggest a late model car for transportation use.
“I just have a soft spot for how these early 90’s accords looked.”
Hmmm…Then I guess that you must live in a state where rock salt isn’t used on the roads.
After 4 or 5 years, the Accords of that era ALL developed a bad rust problem just aft of the rear wheels. Clearly, this must have been a design defect that trapped moisture (and possibly also road salt) that was kicked up by the wheels.
I had a '92 Accord, and while it was a good car overall, the extremely low placement of the seats caused me to develop sciatic pain in my right leg and in my lower back if I drove for more than 30 minutes or so. That was one of the reasons why I got rid of the car.
And, I have to say that my next car–a '97 Outback–required far fewer repairs in the 6 years that I owned it, as compared to the repairs needed by my Accord during the 5 years that I owned it.
actually, I ve never heard of anyone who was unhappy with a crown vic or a mercury marquis, so why don t you just get another one of them and you ll have a parts car too!
@wesw seriously! Haha we’ve had the 98 now for 10 years… Think only major repair we had to do was the fuel pump last year… Other than that it’s just been regular maintenance. So yeah that’s definitely something we’ve thought about… Plus you can get em cheap with low mileage
@db4690 … I can see how a pro mechanic would prefer OBD II for the standardization it provides. When a pro is dealing with dozens of different makes and models over the course of the work week to repair and service, being able to plug your scan tool into the connector on all of them the same way would indeed make life easier for the pro mechanic. I can definitely see that.
But for the diy’er who only works on one car, OBD I cars generally have a less complicated engine management design, and it’s easy enough to read out those blink codes when you need to. Takes maybe 5 minutes is all. In fact in my opinion from the diy’er point of view it is preferable, since you don’t need a separate scan tool – something which might lose, break or becomes obsolete – to service your own car.
@GeorgeSanJose ; I agree to a point. If you are a DIY’er you can find the codes and work your way through the internet and do something. But, you are also lucky that your Corolla is fuel injected. I had an '89, carburetor/ECU combo Corolla and when the CEL would come up and the car would hick-up, it was a nightmare to figure which Solenoid has gone bad. I had disconnected a few of those and the car was running fine, but still, the long-term did not look good.