suppersready

I'm looking to buy a 2006 acura tsx with NAV.

i've located one with 39,500 miles, very clean from the dealership asking $17,851.

Is that a good deal? any think i should be looking for when inspecting the vehicle?

carfax:
http://www.carfax.com/VehicleHistory...16|113|-81|-64

i believe it was a commercial lease vehicle.

thanks in advance

Jimmy The Saint

Carfax is useless, don't bother with what is says. With those miles that car should be certified, if it is, sounds like a good deal. If it isn't something is wrong with it that would cost too much to fix in order to certify it, so walk away. If it is certified you will receive a worksheet with the entire inspection from brakes to wiper blades.

suppersready

interesting... it isn't certified and it is from a very large honda dealer. i think i'll follow your advice on this one.

Boulder TSX

Well, hold on a second. I completely agree with Jimmy the Saint about what he said -- but mainly if the car was offered by an Acura dealer. --No excuse for them not certify it unless there was some problem or unseen reason.

But a Honda dealer can't certify an Acura. (Unless they also sell Acuras.) If they don't sell new Acuras, the car may be okay. Certainly worth having a mechanic you trust check it out, if you like it otherwise. The price seems pretty fair assuming it has no issues or problems.

edit: I just looked at the CarFax...it appears that the car was just sold as a Certified Pre-owned car by an Acura dealer in April. Then a couple of weeks ago, it was sold again, either to Rick Case Acura or by them. Is Rick Case the dealer in question? I happen to know about this dealer, having bought a car from them..and had a very good experience. The question is, did they sell it to a private party, (if so, and it's up for sale again so soon, I'd forget it). But if they sold it directly to the Honda dealer you're discussing, (which is common), perhaps it's okay.

Jimmy The Saint

If that's true, that is was sold as a CPOd car in April then it should still be under warranty no matter what. Right? I mean once it is certified it doesn't become un-certified because it is sold. The CPO runs out on mileage and or time, which it hasn't it. What are we missing?

Boulder TSX

I was thinking the same thing, Jimmy. Seems like the OP might want to ask those questions at the dealer.

bmwproboi05

seems fishy...

1Louder

I bought an 06 that was not certified and I could not be happier with the car. I'm not actually sure what the big deal is aside from an inspection. Does CPO extend the warranty? The car has 11K miles left under factory warranty, so its not like you're totally without options.

There is nothing unique about the 06 to "watch out for" that would be any different from a used car in general. Call an Acura dealership with the VIN and they can tell you if it was serviced with Acura. If the Honda dealership also has an Acura dealership, they might know there as well. To me the rest of it is just the usual things to look for. Was it driven hard, was it wrecked, was it modified, was it serviced.

If it's an MT, you may want to pay more attention to whether it was modified. Most folks interested in mods want an MT.

Boulder TSX

Generally, yes, there's no reason not to consider a non CPO car. The TSX is incredibly reliable.

I think a few of us were just wondering why a car might be purposely kept out of the CPO program -- and if it were, perhaps it would be for a specific reason. (that may not be the case with the above car.)

To answer your question, CPO cars extend the existing bumper to bumper warranty by 1 year & 12,000 miles, (increasing from the original 4 years/50,000 miles to 5 years/62,000 miles). They also give you roadside assistance & towing during that time, and also give you a 7-year / 100,000 mile Powertrain Warranty starting from the original date of new car warranty registration. (Along with a few other things, like new floor mats.)

Here's a rundown on the coverage: http://www.acura.com/WarrantyCoverage.aspx

ZDriver96

Dealers suck.
I bought my 2005 TSX for 12100 with 36k miles on it (non nav, auto)

Dealer ship paid 9500 for a 05 TSX with 70000 miles on it (non nav auto) and wanted 12600 for it. I told them I found the old owner of that car and he told me.... yeah they weren't too happy with that.

Jimmy The Saint

First i have never sold cars been a car dealer or even known anybody that sold cars - that said, I think a lot of dealers are sketchy but some can be great to deal with. Also, i think all of our bad experiences cloud our reality - dealers are for profit businesses and they need to make money just like the rest of us - so charging 3k more than they paid for a car isn't that big of a deal if you ask me. Most companies mark their products up a helluva a lot more than that. Dealers sometimes make only 500 bucks on a car, and yeah they get kick backs from the automaker but its hard to make a living on 500 dollar profits unless you sell a ton of cars. I think we should give a few of them a break every now and again.

LuvMyTSX

After a car is sold, it must be re-certified. Dealers will not always certify all the cars, as they add a couple thousand dollars to the end price, and sometimes they just would rather sell the cars at a slightly cheaper price. If you ask them to certify it, they will usually do it, but it will cost you. I asked a dealer several years ago to do that for me, but it was going to add too much to the price, which was already higher than another quote I had, so I went ahead with another vehicle.

However, if the dealer won't certify it if asked even if you agree to pay for it, then I'd be wary of the vehicle. Also, I forget what the age limit is, but the car must have less than 70k miles on it to be allowed in the CPO program.

Additionally, even if the car is certified, be sure to still get a mechanic to do a once-over, get the Carfax, and get an Auto Check report. None of them will be perfect, but at least you did your due diligence in finding the car's history.

Shockingly (IMO), it seems Acuras can still be allowed in the CPO program even if the car was in an accident. Or perhaps a shady dealer has chosen to "overlook" this blemish, and I doubt Acura HQ actually double-checks their CPOs. At any rate, I have seen several (not a lot, but more than one) Carfax reports of a CPO car that listed an accident on the report. I'd imagine that other manufacturers allow this as well, but IMO it is deceptive and just plain wrong. A customer who is willing to pay extra for a CPO vehicle obviously cares about the car's condition and is trying to take less risk on a used vehicle. I agree that not all accidents are really bad ones that ruin a car forever, but how would you know what happened to the car in question, and why would you pay extra for a vehicle that's been damaged? I just think that buying a CPO should mean that the car was never in an accident and the certification should give you peace of mind. It does to some extent, but I wouldn't take the certification, Carfax, Auto Check, etc. as the final word on any vehicle.

ZDriver96

Yeah maybe I was a bit harsh with the "dealer sucks comment"
It is nice buying a car that someone has usually checked out well and has a 3000 mile warranty.

But if you have any mechanical knowledge and do your own research you have a good shot at getting a nice used acura from a personal seller. 1 you'll get a better deal, 2 they will get more money for their car than going to the dealer.

Car fax is not totally useless. I used it to determine how often the oil was changed, if the tires were ever changed, brakes, chassis lubed, and if the transmission fluid was ever changed. Car fax doesn't always show this because that dealer or shop has to report its work to car fax. But this helped me in choosing a good running car and things i needed to do to the car soon after i bought it.

I'm also leery about commercial lease vehicles because it has no ownership. When I rent a car I beat the crap out of it. I know people who use to put nitrous on rentals and go race them.

Find a responsible owner and you should be able to get that same car for around 15000.

1Louder

I agree.

I sold Acruas in 1990. In two months I sold 27 cars and I never made more than $50 a car. That's because our commission was a percentage of the profit or $50 which ever was larger. Just about every deal was invoice + some small amount. You only made a living by getting volume bonuses.

As for markup, I can list 20 items off the top of my head that have higher markups than cars. It's really not that bad, but we've all been conditioned that if the dealer is asking $1 over invoice they are ripping us off.

That said, the biggest knock on dealers is that if they can take advantage of uninformed buyers, they will. Hence the reputation. But in this example, if the car is worth $12K then it doesn't matter what they got it for, aside from the fact that they may have taken advantage of someone who only got $9K for it in trade and maybe it's worth $10K.