I just bought a very clean '99 auto CL 2.3 and it has 165,000 miles on it. I paid $2800 and it's very clean inside and out but it does have 3 torn CV boots and it's slowly leaking oil from the engine valve cover gasket. Are these expensive repairs? I have read many horror stories about bad transmissions. I ordered a carfax report and it appears it never had a transmission problem.. yet. Are there many owners on here (for the 1999 model only) who never had any issues with this many miles? I'm brand new here by the way, and enjoy the forum. Thank you for any advice anyone can give me. Lynn.

 

I just replaced the vtec solenoid gaskets and oring on my sons 2.2L. That stopped a pretty bad leak. Here's a great DIY video for this job

 

the solenoid on the 2.3's is a real PITA to remove and on the 2.3's honda doesnt sell the top gasket only the block to solenoid gasket. I replaced mine and am still losing some oil. could be leaking from the distributor too

 

See if there's oil leaking from the solenoid to the wiring connector. My son's leaks like that so I'm looking for a new solenoid.

 

My son's car is still leaking oil, but only a fraction of what it was leaking before. Next I'm changing the distributor gasket and shaft seal since there still is oil on the bottom of the distributor.

 

If you search across the web you will notice that many Hondas in general have Distributor O-Rings that fail. It is a common documented problem. Mine failed, and when replacing it it just broke into pieces. Sometimes the shaft seal fails as well.