Anyone have any good or bad experiences to share on a 2000 Acura 3.5 RL sedan. I’m looking at one for sale for $7,500 but it has 145,000 miles on it. Cosmetically the car looks nice, and the carfax report is fairly clean with one exception - an accident at about 35,000 miles which caused some front-end damage (not visible in the images posted by the dealer). Thanks for any input.
At 10 years of age and with 145k miles it can be anybody’s guess as to whether it’s a good car or not. A thorough inspection would be a must and even the most thorough of inspections is no guarantee of a trouble-free car.
At a bare-bones minimum, the transmission should be checked over and a compression test performed on the engine since those 2 items are the most expensive building blocks on a car.
Unless someone can produce real receipts about having the timing belt, water pump, and tensioners replaced recently then you should figure on doing this immediately because this car is an interference engine application. This means if a belt breaks some expensive engine damage will occur. Since this is a somewhat pricy job, use it in negotiations if you buy the car.
Last but not least, a test drive of more than a couple of miles is a good idea. Two miles does not give one much of a feel about problems that may exist. Forty miles might. Just my opinion and hope it helps.
Without records to prove (or disprove) the vehicle’s maintenance history you’re taking a huge gamble. This will be an expensive car to fix when something breaks.
Thanks for your suggestions!