Here's the deal...

Next month (probably mid-April) I'm planning on getting a 2004 TL 6-speed.

I currently own a 98 CL 3.0 with 132k miles on it. As I've noted, this car has been pretty much perfect for me (I bought it new). Just routine stuff and an EGR valve a couple weeks ago and that's it. Within the last 10k miles I've done all four brakes and new tires (and I did the full 105k service at 105k) so I figure it *shouldn't* need much more routine maint. in the near future (except maybe CV boots which aren't too expensive).

But I don't know what I should do with the CL.

As I see it, my options are:

1) Trade it in. I would expect to get about $4k for the car. Becuase I'll be buying the new car through someone I know at invoice the dealer isn't going to be in a bargaining mood on my CL so I figure the best I'll do is $4k.

2) Sell it on my own. I figure I could probably get $5k-$5.5k this way unless you guys think something different. I recently sold a 94 GSR and frankly selling a low-end car is a pain in the ass. But for an extra $1k-1.5k over a trade I might be willing to do it.

3) Keep it as an extra car for a couple years.
I put on about 25k miles each year so I figured I could keep the CL and offload about 10k miles per year off of the new TL and onto the old CL. Then in a couple years it would have ~150k on it and I could probably still sell it for maybe $4-$5k.
This is what I was planning on doing until I came here and read that the tranny's are crap.

The WORST scenario is that I decide to keep the car and 6 months from now the tranny drops. Then I either scrap a car I could have sold 6 months earlier for $5k+ or I put a $2k tranny into a car worth only $5k. Either way I would be really really pissed off.

So should I sell it even though it runs great or should I just dump it now for whatever I can get for it before the tranny (or maybe something else) craps out.

Thanks!

 

damn man....i think u have a really hard situation! If i were you, i'd keep it and still put miles on it so that the TL dosnt get beefed up on miles...but then again, if the tranny blows, your screwed. Thats a really tough situation! If i were you, if your were gonna sell it, i'd try private party first, and if you have to biters, then go for a trade-in....

 

keep the cl, use it as your extra car for when your TL goes in the shop every 3 months


why is it that the most reliable car manufacturer in the world has tons of problems when new cars come out?


Legend, Vigor, TL, RSX, CL, SLX, CL-S

 

NO NO NO....when his TL goes into the shop, then he gets a new loner car...like a CL-S 6spd... :-)

 

New Honda/Acura's aren't reliable?

 

Previous message quoted the wrong post...was in regard to the other comments, about new Acura's not being reliable.

 

If you looks at the TL forum it appears that some people are having some issues with their new TL's, especially early production models.

Most of the problems seem to involve vibration issues generally associated with the crappy Bridgestone tires that come on the car.

But there are some folks out there with more serious issues.

I'm not sure that means the cars are unreliable though. You can go to any forum anywhere and find people bitching about stuff aregarding their cars.

The thousands of people who got "good" ones aren't posting while the handful of lemon owners are posting a lot.

For example, I came here and saw everyone complaining about bad transmissions on the CL. I've had mine 132k miles with no problems other than an EGR valve. So who knows. You can't judge the overall reliability of a car based on forums like these.

But it always pays to do your homework before you buy, which is what I'm doing.