HELP - Is this car a good deal, or a buyers nightmare???

[colinsmx3]

Sorry to come down on the Ontario people. Its not the fact that it came from there, but I have had experience myself with a car from central canada, and I know many other people that have had a lot of problems too. It is mainly just all the salt, that totally eats through cars much quicker. So if you were to take the exact same car from BC and compare it to a car from a different province, I am quite sure you would find that it has considerably more rust compared to a car from BC. And I have read a lot about how fast rust can spread and how it just makes everything more difficult as it often causes all the bolts to seize. I have looked at a bunch of MX3s from BC and I haven't seen any with rust on them (although I wasn't looking at the really cheap ones). But still, this car has less than half the kms all the other ones I was looking at have, and it is already starting to rust.

I am just concerned it will spread quickly, and in a few years it will look like crap.

Though this is not always true! Like I said I got mine that has been garaged and as far as I know not driven in the winter from the previouse owner and I am in Toronto where they throw salt around like it grows from trees! When I was out in BC I did see some rust on a few older cars, so it can happen anywhere. I don't belive it's a 96 though... I am thinking a 94! The HVAC would tell us for sure though.

[Nd4SpdSe]

Low milleage doesn't mean much. My Mx-3 was ain nice shape, bought it from it's original 50+ owner, had only 109'000kms on it. The following year I needed to do an e-test and it failed. Sometimes not enough milleage, as my dad has pointed out when I was looking at it, isn't a good thing. Spends too much time unused, things dry up and seize. Too many short trip means it doesn't get up to running temp for most of it's runs. I was pointed out not long after I got it that I was puffing blue smoke, so my rings were going, even after only 109'000kms. After about 130k, my waterpump started to leak, so I decided to do a ZE swap.

He did winter drive it and it was in great shape, but it did start to get rust on the body after a few years, and like that one, it was over the rear wheel wells. I did get it painted in '05 and so far so good, but it also comes down to getting a good paint job concentrating on prep work, but if the car is too far gone, you can only do so much. I've seen way too many people get their cars repaited and have it rust not long after. Our old '89 F-150 had that happen after the repaint (paint recall paint job) and our Safari started to rust it places that it wasn't after it was painted in less than a year.

A used car is always a gamble, but you have to decide at the start, to either use it and let her rot away, keeping it barely maintained, or you jump on anything that needs to get done when it does need to get done, before things get worse, but it's hard when you don't have the cash, but if you can, you'll have a nice reliable car. My aunt and uncle's Ford minivan just had a serpentine belt go, they've been complaining about how much money they've had to put into it. They did have a tranny issue, but they tend to let things go, like brake pads that are worn beyond working and they'be probably never had the timingbelt changed, thus the serpentine belts weren't done either. You get back out of your vehicles on what you put into them. My buddy got a GS400 about a year and a half ago that's been a lemon since day 1 and had to take a $5000 loan to get everything fixed, but that's still not everything. Needs another ABS sensor, tie rod and a stabilizer link, but he doesn't want to fix them, yet he's trying to sell/trade the car. Our '99 TL was also not perfect, having problems with the brakes and a CEL that the shop we got it from never fixed, just reset the battery and let us on our way, after an hour and a half drive to Brampton 3-4 times. Even had a local shop take off and clean the intake and EGR system i believe 3 times. Even the local Acura dealership kept blaming other things like the 02 sensors. My dad did research, and despite that the Acura dealership literally initially refused to do the work despite that we were paying for it (my dad told off the lady on the phone and hung up, calmed down than called back), there was an upgrade on the EGR system and it was never done. Well yes indeed we got it done and behold, it's been great with even better milleage than before (great milleage for a 3.2L V6) and it was good before. We just did our own thing, fixed that we knew needed to get done, yes there was some trial and error, but in the end, the car's been fixed and running better than stock