Originally Posted by
dinorider
Look out for this. You can win or you can loose.
The last time I did this on a car (a non-Honda) I lost. I got F*cked over once because I wanted to save a few $$$. Never again. In that situation, I went with a so-called mate to check out a car, and everything looked ok. In an attempt to save a few dollars, we bargained to buy the car off the seller and go settle the roadworthy stuff ourselves. After all, the car's registered, is a daily driver, looks ok, so what could be wrong right? As I found out.... plenty....
The very next day, I took the car to a mech's shop for its roadworthy certificate. Strike one: brake discs too thin. Fail. Strike two: The whole chassis front crossmember was MISSING and bits of the chassis showed poor welding. It was invisible from the top, and can only be seen if you hoist the car up and peep under the body work. Boy, I was so F*cked because the work to get the car roadworthy would end up costing more than the car itself. It had apparently been smashed and put back together is a rather dodgy fashion. No roadworthy certificate, car becomes illegal to drive in a month.
I called the seller, who was a woman, and told her, "hey look your car's not roadworthy. I can't get it registered. I can't buy it. I want my money back. Please."
She said, "why not? I bought it 5 years ago it was ok I never crashed it. I can't give you the money back. I've put it into a deposit for another car. My husband took the forms today morning and got this car taken off my name. It's yours now. Sorry. I can't help you."
F*CK. I was stuck with a very expensive LEMON. And I didn't have the money to deal with a LEMON.
In the end, the car was sold to a junkyard for close to peanuts. I lost 80% of the money I paid for it. Not. Happy. Jan.
In the end, I think either the woman who sold the car to me was conned herself and got it with a dodgy roadworthy cert when she bought it, or she knew about the problems with the car and just wanted to pass it on to an idiot. i.e. me.
In my time of looking for used cars, I find that there are a lot more dodgy cars out there than many people realise. Buyer beware.
Now back on topic, I suggest a 96 or later DC2. The earlier ones had only one or no airbag and also an OBD1 ECU. A little know secret is that the 96' cars are a good buy because they are pre-facelift but have much of the post-facelift tech like 2 airbags, OBD2 ECU and new style post-facelift wing mirrors (they started the facelift with the wing mirrors). If the seller doesn't know these little details, use the fact that it is pre-facelift to really knock the price down.
But the minus point is that a 96' DC2 VTi-R is very rare because it's the only year where the car has a pre-facelift body with (mostly) post-facelift internals.
