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View Full Version : TOTAL Car Noob: Should I Buy This '89 Honda Accord Coupe?



aerisdead
09-30-2016, 08:55 PM
Hi,

Sorry for the noob post. I've been pouring over your forum for a while and I want the take from people who really truly know the 3rd Gen Accord inside and out.

Basically: I've been to see a '89 Accord Coupe. It's automatic and has the fuel-injected engine.

I took a look at it, and drove it a bit. Here's everything I know about it.

- A mere 117,000km on it. Two owners: looking at the records the guy who owns it added 35,000 of those in the past year or so. So for over 25 years this car only travelled 82,000km.

- No maintenance records from the original owner, but from the current owner. Looks like the fuel injectors have been replaced a couple of times (?) and nothing else particularly. It needs a new battery (any recommendations?) and has a valve cover gasket waiting to be fitted due to a leak though I ran it for a while and the engine didn't smoke at all. A brake shield is missing on the right wheel.

- The car is spotless inside, practically new. On the outside there is a shallow dent in the driver side door and the power window doesn't work on that side.

- There is some rust in the expected areas: specifically the front right and back left wheel arches, rust going a little into the fender joint (excuse my terrible terminology) on the back wheel arch. It's not horrible at all but it's noticable. I'd basically say there were four or five rust spots.

- I drove it, steering was fine, engine sounded fine, shifting seemed fine, accelerated and maneuvered nicely up to highway speeds, though I wasn't able to open her up completely. There were a couple of issues though: one, some juddering in the wheel. I believe this was always when braking, which makes me think it's a suspect like the rotors. Could be that right wheel with the missing shield. Perhaps more worrying is the car shaking SOMETIMES while idling. "It goes away if you put it into neutral" was the recommendation of the owner and it's true. Not a solution however!

- The car is about $1100 (Canadian). It has passed emissions test recently BUT has NOT had safety done (I mean it passed it when he got it a year ago, but worth noting.)

RIGHT SO:

I basically want this car, because I'm a sucker for the look. I'm prepared to put about another grand into it (more if absolutely necessary, but I'd rather that went to the bodywork) to get it into peak condition. There is a major quirk in that I want to use this car to take a 2500km road-trip across 2-3 days at the end of October. Before buying it, I have already agreed that I can take it to a local mechanic and give it a pre-purchase inspection to make sure it will pass safety and see what issues I, a total car noob, am missing.

(worth noting: I have no garage and no bandwidth to learn how to fix any parts of this car myself. I'll pay for the labour. I also know almost nothing about cars other than how to drive them. Like, literally almost nothing. Everything here is what I picked up in the last week or so of research/study.)

My questions are:

- Is it stupid to buy this car? Is it over-priced, perhaps? A bad fit especially for a long drive?
- What issues do you think I would face with this car, and what do you think I MUST do to it to make sure it's road-trip ready (like: should I expect to be doing the water pump and timing belt, and possibly fixes to the suspension/bearings...) (and how much would you expect to spend...) Would be good to know before I take it for the pre-purchase inspection.

Thanks so much for your help guys. I hope this car can be "the one"--and I'll keep you all updated with it if it is!

conozo
10-01-2016, 04:08 AM
Sounds like a good deal if it it passes your mechanics inspection. Really these cars are bullet proof but they are almost 30 years old. Rubber hoses, suspension bushings, etc do dry out and will need replaced as time goes on. These are perfect cars to learn car repair with since the issues you will have are typically minor and easy repairs since these cars are built so well. I know you said you dont have space, tools or time to work on the car. So the real answer as to weather you should get this car is, are you willing to pay a mechanic to do lots of simple repairs over time. I'm not trying to scare you I'm just being realistic with a 30 year old car.

I do think that these can easily be a reliable daily driver, and you won't have monthly payments. The way I see putting money into an old car is that first you have something unique and secondly Everytime you put money into it, it just keeps getting better and better. Compare that to a newer car with payments, you keep paying monthly but your car just keeps getting worse and worse and then you have to put money on top of that for repairs.

Dr_Snooz
10-02-2016, 08:56 PM
The car sounds like a great find...

BUT

You're talking about a very old car. You don't know much about cars and it doesn't sound like you want to learn (not criticizing, just observing). To me that sounds like a match made in hell. You want to know what might go wrong with it, but the truth is you won't ever know...until it happens. Then you'll get to figure it out or pay for someone else to figure it out. And something will always be going wrong. That's the nature of old cars. If you're stressing over non-operating windows and missing brake shields, you'll go crazy when the A/C craps out in the hottest part of summer, or when it starts making strange noises when you're out on a date, or when it blows a coolant hose during rush hour on the freeway, requiring a tow to the nearest shop, or throws a rear ball joint and totals out the rear suspension and fender. This is the stuff that old cars do on a regular basis, especially if you don't know their quirks.

Parts for these cars are getting scarce. If you need proof, just try to find that missing brake shield or the replacement panels for your rusty fenders. Passionate owners like the guys on here will spend the time shopping on obscure websites, eBay, Craigslist, other discussion boards, etc. to find the parts they need. They will spend Saturdays combing the junkyards, etc. No shop is going to do that for you. You'll just have to do without that brake shield, or deal with whatever jury rig they devise.

What concerns me even more is that you're talking about "the one." That means you're going to fall in love with the car, because these cars are just that much fun. But when you fall in love with a car, it means you'll be willing to spend a lot to keep it running. That makes you easy prey for a dishonest shop. When you take the car in, they are going to pull your pants down and give you a merciless raping. If you manage to limp back for another go, they'll do it again and again until you are out of money, out of love, or both. Just the bodywork alone is going to be unusually expensive because replacement panels do not exist for these cars, so every panel will need to be hand formed. This means serious dollars.

If you were buying the car as a project, that would be one thing. If you were buying it to drive into the ground and abandon, it would be fine. I suspect, however, that you're looking for something reliable to drive every day that won't cause a lot of drama. If that's the case, then this isn't the car for you.

aerisdead
10-03-2016, 10:00 AM
Thanks for these answers, guys!

It's a lot to ruminate on. Dr_Snooz, you were harsh, but I get it. I think of myself as sensible which is why I'm doing stuff like asking here. I know you're just watching out for me, but I'm not going to fall for a dishonest shop, I promise ;)

It's true though, I fell for the car when I drove it, and while I'm not stressing over the small fixes, I am looking at the car and considering if I can find the bandwidth to make it "part of my life" and that does include learning it inside and out. I mean, I've been pouring over the user manuals ha ha.

My issue is I looked at it as something I could drive into the ground, but it's too nice to do that to. I mean, until now I've been looking at mid-2000s Accords/Civics and I feel nothing for them, any of those I'd probably just drive into the ground but I'm already paying maybe $2, 3k more by that point for something not fun. So it's a real dilemma for me: something I could love and lose money on, or something I won't and... will probably still lose money on!

Dr_Snooz
10-04-2016, 07:31 PM
Sorry. Didn't mean to be harsh. It was probably just me re-living old memories of making the same mistakes...

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

2ndGenGuy
10-05-2016, 03:46 PM
Also, let me add a few cents.

$1000 for bodywork is nothing. If you're talking about fixing rust, you might get one rear quarterpanel repaired for that price. You're talking about having the shop cut out all the rusty metal, weld in all new metal, do the bodywork to get it straight, then the entire area around it will need to be paint matched to that old ass paint, and blended in.

Think about the rust you can see, and then double that for the rust you can't see.

If you cheap out on the rust repairs, you'll end up with the car potentially looking worse than it did with the rust, and you might as well have not spent the money. Anything short of cutting out the rusty metal is not going to be a long term fix, IMO.

If you're just going to drive it into the ground, you'll have to accept the rust and live with it.

aerisdead
10-05-2016, 07:14 PM
Hi 2ndGenGuy,

No, I hear you about the rust. I'm not intending to fix the rust because it would be $$$ and it's not actually so bad. The average person wouldn't notice it.

If any of the rust is bad enough that there are holes underneath etc. however I'll just skip the car. Having a mechanic check it this weekend, to ensure it passes safety and to see if there are any hidden no-nos (like rust).

2ndGenGuy
10-06-2016, 11:25 AM
Cool, I didn't want to be a buzzkill or anything.... Just wanted to make sure you didn't get your hopes up super high, then find out you're stuck with the rust because of how expensive and time consuming it is to repair.

Dr_Snooz
10-07-2016, 09:46 PM
Your $1,000 budget is not realistic. Because there are no service records, you'll want to do a major service right away. This will change the engine oil, trans oil, a full tune up (cap, rotor, plugs and wires), change air and fuel filters, maybe a coolant flush, inspect and top off all fluids, lube door handles and hinges, and a whole lot of inspection. The shop will look for any fluid leaks. They'll look for any suspension problems, torn CV axle boots, bad bushings, loose ball joints or tie rods, worn tires, burned out bulbs, etc. They will also road test the car to check for problems at speed. Expect a major service to cost $800.

But all that inspection is going to turn up problems. The shop will call you to report those problems and give you an estimate of what it will cost to repair them. You can expect every problem to cost at least three figures. A bad ball joint will cost a couple hundred. If you have a torn CV axle, figure on $300 to fix it, maybe more. A leaky seal will cost a hundred, etc. I don't know what a brake job costs, but I'd expect something like $300 for a proper one. By the time they're done, your $1,000 budget will be a distant memory.

But you're not done. There are still a number of 3g specific things you need to do. You will need to do a full timing belt service ($600). You'll also want to have all the coolant hoses replaced (including all the little bypass hoses). I honestly don't know how much that would cost, but I would guess it will be at least $200, assuming you can find a shop that will actually replace them all (I couldn't). I would also recommend having the oil pump replaced as part of the timing belt service. Figure on another $100 for that, assuming you do it as part of the timing belt service. If you have it done later, it will cost $300. You should also replace the rear upper control arms because those can fail catastrophically and total the car. Plan on another $2-300.

This is a minimum to ensure you have a reasonably safe and reliable car to drive. After all this is done, you can begin working on the other things you want, like the shuddering brakes, rough idle, power window, rust, etc. Plan on each of those costing a couple hundred each time. The last shop I went to charged $150 minimum just to diagnose a problem. Actually fixing it cost more.

If you learn to do your own work, you can easily halve the costs, and that includes buying tools to do all the work. If you already had tools, you could cut the price by a third. Even then, you're still looking at more than $1,000 easily. When you get some real experience wrenching, you can get those costs way down. I probably spent $400 to get my last car up and running.

Yes, you can find shops to do the work cheaper, but they only do the work cheaper by doing less work. You end up going right back to pay more for all the stuff they didn't do the first time, and then again for the stuff they screw up. You can also elect not to have all this work done, but you're going on a very long trip and you really don't want to find what work you should have done when you're stranded on a remote mountain pass. Seriously. People die that way.

I caution you on this purchase. It's one thing to say you are willing to pay for repairs, quite another to pay for those repairs. If you had some car experience, wrenching experience, or were willing to learn, you'd be stretching it. If you're not willing to do your own work, then you'd better be very wealthy.

aerisdead
10-08-2016, 01:17 PM
Thank you for the advice, Dr_Snooz!

87rustbucket
10-12-2016, 04:02 PM
I understand you wanting to get the car because these cars are super fun to drive especially when you have a manual:), but you will have to learn how to work on cars if you want to keep this car running and aren't made of money. Parts are relatively cheap but the labor cost are killer.

I got my 3Gee as a first car and was also a car noob at the beginning but have learned a ton about cars for the last 5 years I've kept her running. With the help and knowledge of friends and this forum I am no longer a car noob. Early on I brought the car to the shop a couple times, first for rear upper-ball-joint and second for the car shaking under braking, close to 2 grand for those repairs. However now I never bring her to the shop and do all the work myself and it is relatively affordable to keep on the road but still more than a newer car. If you want to buy the car you will have to learn how to work on it eventually to keep it affordable.

Over the last 5-6 years I put nearly 100,000 miles on my car(commute to school and deliver pizza), and have put thousands of dollars into it, even by doing most of the work myself. The advice given above is solid advise. Old cars need a lot of care, and are a ton of fun to drive.

Best of luck.