rev up your engines today I'm gonna help you answer the question should I buy a
used Acura now Acuras being fancy Honda's the pretty well made cars but
like any other car they have a certain lifespan to them and in the case of this
1999 Acura CL it led a pretty tough life now this car was just purchased it's got
the paper tags on it originally this was over a twenty six thousand dollar car
back in 1999 it's a two-door sports version not the four-door and out of the
hood it's got the v6 engine and as you can see and here still got a lot of
metal this isn't plastic this is all metal they were certainly more solid
built back in the day and all the plastic ripped of modern cars have on it
now this version does have the automatic transmission but truth be told back in
1999 the Acura automatic transmissions were pretty reliable I had customers
get hundreds of thousands of miles on but don't soda shoes one has 150,000
miles on it the seats are in pretty good shape but the leather armrest has seen
better days and the windshield's got a giant crack in it and someone tried to make it
look race spiffy with this matte black paint but look at the wheels so they just
spray-painted these things but the old chrome is underneath it's pretty beat
up but from far away it looks ok to get close it's pretty crappy and when you look
closer here you can tell the things been in numerous wrecks body panels don't fit
that well anymore you can see overspray from when they sprayed it now it was
such a bizarre paint job the first thing you want to check is what was the
original color and they always say on the door nh592p is the exterior
color look it up in your phone for acura paint colors it's a metallic black
at least it was a black car this isn't the original black but at least it's
black from my advice never buy a car that was one color and was repainted
another cuz they end up looking like crap every time somebody dings a door
rock hits something the old paint y'all sue and it looks horrible
at least it was black it's a different color black now but at least it started
out is black too and even though it's obviously been wrecked a few times you
can see that the a/c condenser is straight it's not bent for massive racks
and the radiator part goes pretty good but you notice this he has new radiator
fans and both of them are brand new when you see stuff like that on a used car
you want to take it for a good long road test both for 10 20 minutes in traffic
stop and go and on a highway and if you see any where you drive the temperature
gauge starts to rise higher don't buy the car it's got an overheating problem
somebody tried putting new fans and to fix it that didn't fix it so anytime you
see something like that make sure you road test it for quite some time to see
if it has any overheating problems because it does you don't want to buy
now in this case the customer didn't pay that much money for the vehicle it's not
like he's gonna lose a whole bunch of money he didn't pay anything
he paid less than one twentieth of the original sticker price of this car and
sure it's got a lousy paint job I mean they painted over everything with the
black they didn't mask it all this is supposed to be chrome here and they
painted the wheels over with the differences black look basically at one
time luxurious sports sedan has turned into a rat sports sedan it's not
something you're just gonna buy and then drive from Texas to California back it's
a red car but that's sad it's a pretty luxurious red car how much longer is it
gonna last 21 years old that's 150 thousand miles well it
depends on how you take care of it it isn't accurate after all made by Honda
it's not a car you're gonna be doing burnouts in your Burnie and you know
you're burning the transmission out but if you drive it conservatively change
the oil regularly hey I've seen these things with two hundred thousand miles
on and realized this particular model it's got a rubber timing belt and these
are interference engines if the belt breaks Pistons will hit the valves
the first thing I'd advise doing is if you don't have records for a car this
old this many miles change the timing belt in the water pump because if they
break you can say goodbye engine now I've had customs are bought these things
originally and had them for 25 years just gamble and say Scotty I've had
this car for 25 years I want to spend that kind of money changing the timing
belt the water pump and all this stuff I'll just drive it until it drops and
sometimes they still golf few more years and when the belt eventually breaks then
they just junk the car because in the case of this rat Acura it would cost
him more to have the timing belt and water pump and and puller replaced than he
paid for the car which is why if you're looking at this particular car or any
used Acura you want to give it a good road test first and if it runs good it's
just good and it's a cheap price then you want to gamble with hey maybe I'll
get some time out of it it's a fun car to drive go right ahead
just don't go out and buy one of these like one of my customers high school
kids did and thought oh he's going to make a drifter car out of it and then
blow the thing up and a few months after buy because being an Acura with a
big old v6 engine they will go even when they're old but then they go until they
blow now this particular one is a pretty honest rat car you look at it you can
see hey it's got a rat paint job it's not a wolf in sheep's clothing you can
see that it's a red car and it didn't cost much money but don't make the
mistake of buying one of these cars to think you're gonna turn it into a like
brand-new car put on a $3,000 paint job soup it all up
it's a rat car it's made as a rat car drive is a rat car don't throw a whole bunch
of money into it because it's not worth it basically you're getting a luxury
sports car at a very low price if you can get even a year or two out of it of
good use and drive it conservatively hey it could be a fun car but if after a
while it turns into a nightmare car with the engine starting to go or the
transmission don't throw money into it then you just
said wow that was fun while it lasted get rid of it realize that you can buy
20 of these things for the price of a new one
so just think of each one only lasted a year you got 20 years of cars and you
get to drive a different car all the time so now you know the truth about old
used Acura luxury cars when you should buy them and when you should just say
nah I'll look for a different one, so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell