Dukeuni

After a decent amount of research, I have decided to buy a 2005-2009 Acura RL. I am looking for a higher mileage car (based upon my budget of less then $20,000 for the car). With this in mind, is there a thread that discusses anything in particular i should do when purchasing?

I have read through this thread that has a lot of information for pre-delivery inspections of card: https://acurazine.com/forums/showpos...17&postcount=7

I was wondering if there was any other thing I should consider.

Does anyone have a link to the vehicle service lists for different mileage points? With the used car that I buy, I doubt I will have a full service history, so I will most likely need to take it in for a specific service based upon its mileage. I am just not sure what I need to ask for when getting a quote (not sure what needs to be done at different mileage points).

Thanks for your help!

Ragus

This is from the owners manual:

MID Maintenence Symbols
A Replace engine oil
B Replace engine oil and oil filter
Inspect front and rear brakes
Check parking brake adjustment
Visually inspect these items:
Tie rod ends, steering gear box, and boots
Suspension components
Driveshaft boots
Brake hoses and line (including ABS)
All fluid levels and condition of fluids
Exhaust system
Fuel lines and connections

1 Rotate tires
2 Replace air cleaner element
If you drive in dusty conditions, replace every 15,000
miles (24,000 km).
Replace dust and pollen filter
If you drive primarily in urban areas that have high
concentrations of soot in the air from industry and
from diesel-powered vehicles, replace every 15,000
miles (24,000 km).
Inspect drive belt
3 Replace transmission and transfer fluid
Driving in mountainous areas at very low vehicle
speeds or trailer towing results in higher
transmission and transfer temperatures.
This requires transmission and transfer fluid changes
more frequently than recommended by the
Maintenance Minder. If you regularly drive your
vehicle under these conditions, have the transmission
and transfer fluid changed at 60,000 miles
(100,000 km), then every 30,000 miles (48,000 km).
4 Replace spark plugs
Replace timing belt and inspect water pump
If you drive regularly in very high temperatures (over
110°F, 43°C), or in very low temperatures (under
20°F, 29°C), replace every 60,000 mile (U.S.)/
100,000 km (Canada)
Inspect valve clearance
5 Replace engine coolant
6 Replace rear differential fluid
Driving in mountainous areas at very low vehicle
speeds or trailer towing results in higher level of
mechanical (shear) stress to fluid This requires
differential fluid changes more frequently than
recommended by the Maintenance Minder. If you
regularly drive your vehicle under these conditions,
have the differential fluid changed at 7,500 miles
(12,000 km), then every 15,000 miles (24,000 km).
NOTE:
Independent of themaintenancemessages in theMulti-Information
Display, replace the brake fluid every 3 years.
Inspect idle speed every 160,000miles (256,000 km).
Adjust the valves during services A, B, 1, 2, or 3 only if they are noisy.

And here is an 06 RL in NH for 16K...its at 102K miles. Have them throw in the 105K service and I dont think thats a bad deal, although you could prob find them cheaper too.

http://www.primeacuranorth.com/used/...e9e7ef3fc9.htm

Ragus

There were suppossed to be spaces inbetween each item, but looks like my Returns got truncated in the copy\paste process....sorry for the jumbled text

Megatron

You should get a 2006+ if you can (preferably the 2009 since that's the first year of the Mid-Model change) to avoid a lot of the 1st model year issues.

wolfbbg

Good luck on your search, with a budget of $20k you should be able to find a very nice RL. I, too, had arbitrarily set the same amount as the max I wanted to pay.

FWIW, I got my RL (an '07 Base) about 6 weeks ago. I only paid $18,750 before taxes/registration. It was silver/black, 48k miles, tires were at 50-75% max tread depth.

The exterior had: a few scuffs on the front & rear bumper covers, insignificant hail damage on the roof, and minor hail damage on the trunk lid. The interior was clean except for a few scratches here and there -- which I promptly repaired with a DIY kit.

I feel that I got a decent deal. Since I just drive our RL to/from work, I doubt that I will ever get the exterior fixed...

rgds/slds,

bg

IanVS

To put your "higher mileage" and $20k into perspective, I got my 2005 with 160k for ~$11k. You wouldn't know it has that many miles from looking at it though, previous owner took great care of it. I was driving a coworker the other day and told him it had that many miles and he thought I was joking. He said it looked brand new. Previous owner had some kind of deal where he got free tires for life if he did all the maintenance at the dealer, and since dealers put all their work into carfax, I have a fairly good record of all the work ever done to it.

As for maintenance schedule, the biggest thing to watch for is the 105k timing belt change, I think those run 1.5k or more. Even if the car doesn't have good records, a mechanic should be able to tell whether or not this has been done.

As has been mentioned in other threads on the site, watch for PAX tires on 2006+ cars with the tech package. They're run-flats that are very expensive to replace (~2k) and wear out quickly. You can change them out for regular tires, but only if you also change the wheels (also an expensive proposition).

Something I didn't realize until recently, the OEM windshield glass is acoustic dampening. If the windshield has been changed out it's possible that they used a cheaper brand that does not have this feature. There are a few brands of glass that have the dampening (I'm sure you could find it with a search). Possibly something to check for if you care about that.

Test the car at night. For one thing the bulbs on the HVAC controls and hazzard light bulb burn out easily on these cars, and they're a pain to change. Also when you first start up the car with the lights on, you should see the one on the right swivel out to the right, and then come back. After you drive the car for a while and it warms up, you should see both lights moving out into the inside of a corner as you turn, to help illuminate where you're going. That system goes out on some cars and is not cheap to fix.

That's all the biggies I can think of based mostly on the research I've done on this site. There's probably a lot more to learn, don't be afraid to search around. Use the advanced search, so you can narrow in on second gen RL. The standard search in the box at the top of the page is kind of crap in my opinion.

TruEvo1

As far as the timing belt goes, you should change this belt before 100k always on any car. Most warranties cover up until this point for the timing belt. Also check with your dealer if you take it to one to see if they do a package deal that would include valve adjustment and all belts changed. The Honda dealer I took mine to had several 100k service maintenance deals put into one slightly higher timing belt cost. It is easier for them to do other services since they have the cover off anyways to replace the belt.

Remember to always keep an eye on engine oil levels and not rely upon service intervals. As the car ages, the oil consumption will increase. So the service maintenance reminder might not be functioning correctly over time.