Mine is 1999 Integra with 110k and regular engine - any chance of getting half of that price …? Believe that Type R was built in numbers.
Anyway, one of the front suspension has grease seepage - m/c said just drive - might have said eventually I will have to change - will changing it make it drive like new car - everything feels tight - better control when driving? All other repairs are up to date.
If changing, should I get OEM or some high performance aftermarket - I am not into lowering cars. But have heard that people put non-OEM on Accords felt that it was not as good as OEM. If changing, should I change all four suspension?
WHAT in the front suspension has grease seepage? Shocks? Ball joints? CV Joints?
NO chance of getting half that price without the R package and 110K. This car sold for big bucks because it was totally original, low miles, and a rare model. Yours is not.
OEM is usually best.
If you want it to feel like anew car, you have to replace most everything that wears. Lower control arms complete with new ball joints and bushings, Upper arms with ball joints and bushings, tie rod ends, and new shocks. In the rear, every bushing, and shocks. Top it off with new tires.
If you don’t want to go that far, just fix what needs to be fixed and move on.
There are some very good aftermarket upgrades for Integras, including supsension. I would not lower the car. Lowering it improperly will cause you grief (up to and including scraping the gas tank on bumps and eventually wearing a hole in it, or breaking ball joints, etc), and lowering it properly is expensive and doesn’t really do much for you unless you’re going to race it on an actual race track.
The Type R was a very special beast. They were made in very small numbers, and had a lot more to them than just a bigger engine. They were lighter, better-handling, better almost everything than their normal Integra cousins – which is saying something because the normal Integra was a stellar car. At the time, the Type R was considered the Holy Grail of Hondas. The regular Integra was considered a Civic with a big engine, because that’s what it was.
The regular Integra was made in very large numbers, you still see a lot of them on the road today, and as such they’re not going to have their value bumped up via “specialness” any more than any other cool Honda of their era, of which there were a lot.
That said, with only 110k on that engine, that car probably has a lot of life left in it if you’ve managed to keep the rust at bay. It’s worth giving a little love to - Hondas of that era routinely put over a quarter million miles on the odometer before they’re put out to pasture.
Thanks @shadowfax and @Mustangman:
There is no rust other than - when parked in the lot - the car that was parked next to mine reversed with steering not being straight and ran off. He scraped my door. Repair shop tells it is not worth repairing. Those scraped area has primer visible - I am thinking replacing the door is a good idea - is there are good shop to buy these doors?
Engine will last but not the AT tranny. I have been maintaining it well.
Personally, I think that 43 grand for that car based on rarity and the very low miles is a mistake. The buyer’s option is to hardly drive it and hope for appreciation or drive it, accrue miles, and devalue the price given because of the low miles.
As to OEM parts, suspension, steering, shocks, struts, etc on the cars are not manufactured by Honda or Acura so technically speaking all of that stuff is aftermarket.
In many cases the parts used by (Honda/Acura in this case) are manufactured by the same people who manufacture and provide them to any number of local parts houses.
The only difference is the packaging or a manufacturing stamp. In other words, the parts pile is a giant pinata…
This does sound like an asset investment. And I agree with OK4450 that this one seems like a risky purchase.
But, than, I know less than squat about buying cars as an investment, so even I wouldn’t trust my judgment in this arena. I’m constantly staggered by the sums that some collector cars fetch. I simply don’t understand the prices. They make no sense to me.
Slightly OT but at the Barrett Jackson auction a few years ago 2 women got into a bidding war over a Barney Fife clone '63 Ford Galaxie police car and ran the bidding up to well over a 100 grand on that POS which was worth 15-20 at best. Maybe.
Someone could have purchased a '63 and had it built to clone Barney specs for a fraction of what the winner gave for that thing.
And the police did not even use the high end Galaxies for squad cars; they used the base 300 plain jane.
One of the announcers made the comment; Wow, I’m gonna go out and start buying up '63s…
They were shell shocked when the bidding reached 40k…
Another one was the guy who bought a rare late 90s Mustang Type R at a very inflated price on eBay or something like that.
He discovered after the fact that there is no such thing as a Type R Mustang and those R badges were the cheap stick-ons from AutoZone. Ouch…
With the internet one would have thought that a little homework would have been in order before handing over a large sum of money for a dubious claim of a rare car.
Folks buying that car would probably do so b/c it has been in a garage for the last 15 years and rarely driven. And still in its original configuration, stock in other words.
So if you want to sell your car as a classic, keep it stock, and always use OEM parts as long as they are available. If you are aware some parts that are known to wear out or rust are getting rare as OEM, buy them now and put them on the shelf for future repairs.
So how would a garaged car be different than yours?
No surface rust, faded paint, just a like-new pristine finish.
No serious structural rust, like fender wells, floors, bumper supports, etc.
Engine starts and runs just like the day it was new; likewise the transmission.
Drivetrain is quiet as the day it was new.
New tires.
Like new-feeling suspension.
Interior like new, with a like new aroma.
Edit: * One more thing, very important, glass all around is in like new condition. No pitted windshield, no nicks in the glass, all glass clear as the day is drove off the showroom floor.
Why? If it’s only a scrape, just have a shop fix the scrape. If you’re lucky, the other guy’s paint transferred onto your car rather than your paint being scraped off onto his - if that’s the case all it needs is rubbing compound and some elbow grease.
@scionf, some places offer door skins. If the door is structurally fine, no hinge or latch problems, then just the outer panel would need to be replaced. This would be easier and cheaper than a replacement door.
Since the title of the post is “What repair makes a car feel like new”, I’m going to go away from the current thread and say that nothing makes an old car feel better than a new set of decent tires.
Yes to new tires! Especially if you can find quiet ones. Our 1995 Integra (GSR) always had terrible road noise from tires.
Replacing the old cloth upholstery with new leather (and adding seat heaters) made my 13-year old Subaru feel new. Cost around $1,600 at an aftermarket shop.
About 500 of those 1997 Type-Rs were sold in the US. That one has number plate 00499. After 1997 more of them were produced & sold so anything that isn’t a 1997 white Type R (and isn’t in pristine condition), will command a much lower price. Other Ebay listing show that newer Type Rs are in the $10k-15k range and even less for the GSR & lesser models.
Thanks for sharing this one though. It’s beautiful. It really makes me miss our GSR
My New Years Car Resolution for 2015 is to to keep the Corolla’s windows clean. I looked up the recipe for glass cleaner in my Consumer’s Report, and mixed up a gallon. And put a spray bottle in the passenger compartment. One thing I noticed, with crystal clean windows all around, the car seems to run like new. Go figure.
Replace the cloudy headlights with new ones. Even if the paint is in great shape, fresh headlights make the car look years newer and you can really see a whole lot better at night, so it is safer to drive.
@BustedKnuckles - no damage to door hinge or latch - it closes as before - but there is a dent and primer is visible. They guys are insisting that it can not be pulled out. Thanks for the tip on outer panel - let me see if I can find some.
@GeorgeSanJose - do tell us what u found out on CR - appreciate it.
@ccatx - what is the difference between GSR and Type R - I have seen GSR in 4Drs - I know GSRs have VTEC engine. So TypeR is just the engine with 3dr hatch?
My current focus is getting the outer panel and fix up the paint - if anyone of you know of any popular places, I would like to know - that itself make a huge difference - might detail the car too. As for the drive quality, I want to do two things - go back to Mobil 1 from Kendal Synthetic and when I have saved up, change the suspension (need to do research) to get good ones. Because these cars are becoming extinct, there is a scarcity for parts at the right price.
The thing is, new stuff - be it a car radio or Kenmore refrigerator - nowadays they have a life span of 4 years - it looks like newer cars are also similar in terms of reliability - better have extended warranty. Eg Sony radio from late 90s is still going but the the one from 2011 is already dead!
