Are there any major differences between an 02 TL/TL-S vs an 03 TL/TL-S? I'm looking at an 02 TL-S that's black with about 38k miles and costs 22k while an 03 TL-S silver with 34k miles and costs 24.6k and an 03 TL black with 31k miles and costs 23k.

Very little difference price vs mileage wise. All certified pre-owned from Acura. Since I do prefer black, I was wondering if it'd be better to get the 02 TL-S instead of an 03 TL. Or if there were enough changes between an 02 and 03 to warrant the 03 TL-S.

 

Go for the TL-S 260hp vs 220hp. 17 vs 16 in wheels. TL-s has VCS (stability control) Try to get one w/ NAV, too.

 

The only changes are some perforated leather on the door panels in the 03 and Onstar with Navigation in 2003. But, a big negative aspect of the 03 is that depending on production sequence/date the car may not be covered by Acura's 7/100k transmission extended warranty. The transmission was FAR from fixed, but they dropped the warranty on late-production 03s. For that reason alone I'd get the 02. Save some money, and all 02s are covered 7/100k.

 

TL = 225hp
TL-S = 260hp

VSA = Vehicle Stability Assist

 

heh i don't think any of the cars have nav on them, but thanks for the headsup on the warranty issue with the transmission. i still have to go look at these cars, but atleast i'll have a better idea going in. i noticed that the prices the dealer has listed on cars.com is only 500 higher than the kbb value. do they actually go by that value? cause if so, i'm guessing it'd be hard to talk them down by a good amount.

 

All 02 or 03 CERTIFIED TL/TL-S come with 7/100 powertrain warranty regardless of VIN...

 

by not reading the whole post.

 

heh so i shouldn't have to worry about the warranty... now it's just whether an 03 is worth the extra money over an 02...

 

They are very similar and it probably comes down to personal preferences on color, etc. Keep in mind that the 03 should have slightly higher resale value because it is the newer car. So, you pay more now but it's worth more on the other end. Again, my biggest thing with used cars is that they're all different in terms of the car they've received. I would spend as much time as you can driving, inspecting them and then go with the one that seems best to you. Good luck...

 

DING, DING, DING... And we have a winner!!!

The main reason I went from my 99TL to an 02 TL-S and not the 03 TL-S is the tranny warranty. Every 02TL is covered, however only some of the 03's are covered because Acura said they were able to fix the trannies while the cars were on the line in production. They say certain VINs are covered in 03 and others are not, with my past luck with dealerships and warranty issues (don't get me started) I wasn't going to take the chance I would get a TL-S that wasn't covered, and I would take it to the dealership that doesn't "believe" in doing courtesy work.

Note: Many 03 TL-S members have had their trannies replaced by the dealers even though their VIN falls in the "non-covered" range. But what happens when the tranny goes in two years, with 86k miles on it? do they start being sticklers about your VIN then? Technically they wouldn't HAVE to change it if they didn't want to.

nope...only some (probably most, not sure) 03's are covered.

 

Is there a lot of wiggle room when it comes to sale prices on a used certified car?

 

Always!....when buying used

 

Kind of pricey for a TL-S 02 or 03 don't you think .!! In Canada I could get them between 16.5k to 17.5k.

 

Well, I think I can get them cheaper if they're not certified used, but I'd much rather have that warranty.

 

I got a Blakc 02 TL-S in Dec. No navi but it did have a spoiler. 22,200 mi and I bought it for $18,500....dunno if you can get as good a deal because i think mine was a steal for the low mileage and the excellent condition it was in.

But best of luck and def. use the tranny as an excuse to drop the price of the car. You can call any Acura dealer and ask them if the tranny has ever been replaced as long as you have the VIN. And DEF Carfax the car before you buy.

BTW- u'll love the car as i do....just gotta get rid of the gold now!!...haha

 

totalpakage: did you get it from an acura dealer certified used? or from another party?

 

This is incorrect. ALL Certified Pre-Owned TLs (regular or S) are covered by a 7/100 powertrain warranty, without exception. This logically includes all 2003 TLs

 

Yes, ALL certified 02 and 03's come with the 7/100 powertrain warranty. The VIN on my 03 is such that had I bought the car new I wouldn't have had the extended warranty. So, in this case by buying a certified car I got a better powertrain warranty than the original purchaser...

lawtai, another thing you can do when comparing two cars is to see what previous records of service the dealer might have on them. Was the car originally purchased at the dealership that you're looking to buy from? If so, they might have records. Even if it wasn't purchased there and the dealership got the car at auction you can still call Acura with the VIN and they will be able to tell you where the car was bought. Then you can call that dealer to see if they have any records of service for this VIN. I did these things when I was buying and this info can help you in making your decision...

 

Thanks for the help dug-mac. I'm probably going to take a look at teh cars on Saturday. I'll be sure to take note of the VIN #'s.

 

No problem. In a way I envy the position that you're in as I enjoyed gathering the data, etc. when I was buying. Of course, in the end you have to go with your gut sense and preferences. If you really like black maybe that's more important than model year or other info you might get. Good luck and enjoy...

 

I went with an 03 purely because it's the last year of the body style and they had the most time to work out any kinks. Keep in mind also, just because some of the members on this board have had tranny issues, doesn't mean that EVERY TL will have these issues. There are way more tl owners out there than those who visit this board. But if you are buying CERTIFIED PRE-OWNED from a dealer, which it looks like the prices of the cars your looking at ARE CERTIFIED, you will be covered in the worst case scenario of a tranny falure. Buying CERTIFIED you also get a better warrenty than buying new if you find a car with low miles.... I found my 03 TL-S with 8,500 miles in 04 and I have a warrenty up to 62,000 miles thru the certified program. Sorry to get off topic, the only real differences between the 02 and 03 I think the 02 has tweeters mounted up near the side mirrors inside the cabin and I guess the 03 have tweeters built in to the bottom speaker like a 2 way? I might be wrong. I donno, Also on an 03 navi you get Onstar and ofcourse an 03 nav disk. I'd say get which ever car you can afford because essentially they are the same car. If you can afford it, def. go with the Type-S.

 

yea, i'm leaning towards getting a type-s tl. while i'm partial towards black, i'd be happy with silver too. heh i currently have a beige 97 accord so either silver/black would be better. I just wanted to make sure there weren't any major differences between 02 and 03 to make getting 1 more worth it over the other.

 

Well, nobody considers that 03 is "in service (when the car was first sold)" later than 02, which means 03 will have more warranty time. If you drive more than 15K a year, then it doesn't matter, but if you drive less than that, the 03 will have longer original warranty time, and powertrain warranty because of the fact is 7yr/100K whichever comes first

 

Well, i'm most likely going to keep the car for awhile, although I'm not sure how many miles I'd be putting on it in a year. Doubtful I'd be putting more than 15k on it a year.

 

I can actually find out the VIN #'s of the car before going in and taking a look. Is there someplace online that I can check the service records, or am I going to have to call in to do this?

 

Do Carfax and check with the dealer for service records. I've gone as far as contacting the previous owner of vehicles I have bought used from dealers prior to purchasing the car. Most previous owners will fill you in, dealers well, lets just say they aren't alway up front with info. on used cars. I usually know what I'm going to spend on a used car by doing my internet Blue book homework=offer not much $$ above trade in value and go from there. Remember they want to make money on their used cars and probably paid the previous owner trade in value. If a dealer wants to sell the car for RETAIL, I just walk away. There are always better deals out there if you look for them.
Example, bought my 99 TL NAVI from an individual owner with 38,900 miles on it in mint condition with all service recalls done/new brakes and rotors all around recently replaced by Acura at 30,000 miles and the 30,000 mile service done by Acura at 35,000 miles for $11,000. The local dealer (not Acura) had a 2000 TL-P Navi with 49,000 miles on it in great shape and they wanted $16,500. That's what they sold it for back in Oct. 2005 to someone else. I offer em $12,500 and they laughed. I laughed when I bought the 99 with less miles for $11,000 from an individual. Happy bargaining.
Tip: Be informed, know what you want to spend for the car and WALK if they want retail!

 

I bought my car from a third party subaru dealer....and yeah...just carfax the VIN and find out how many owners, where the car has been (mine was 1 owner in the middle of nowhere PA) and whether it was ever registered as a lease or fleet....people who have lease tend to care less esp. towards the end.

I went to an acura dealer and drove a white 03 TL-S that was Certified and the dealer had it marked for $24k.....i told him i'm a car guy...(i work at benz) and told him i've already found a deal for less mileage and less money...and the best he could do was $19,700...AND the car had a cigarette burn and handling was shaky....One other dealer could only get it down to around $20k....

hope that helps!!

 

heh, well I checked the carfax report for the 02 TL-S and it only had 1 owner, but was bought as a lease. The current dealership got the car from an auction. Based on the carfax report, it looks like the car was regularly serviced. Should I be worried about the auctioning of the car? Other than that, based on the carfax report it looks pretty good.

 

hmm, the car also had electrical/emission/engine services done to it. is that a bad thing?

 

lawtai, now is when you need to call the dealership where the work was done and find out just what was involved. In my experience when they say things like electrical/emission/engine, it could be something minor or it could be more significant...

 

i'd follow dug-mac's advice. Also, if you find out that it was minor problems, most likely the dealer selling it won't have any idea. So print out all the carfax info as well as info on the recalled tranny and use that as leverage when talkin bout prices. I wasn't too worried about getting a Certified b/c the TL-S besides the tranny problem has a reputation as a very reliable car.....again...gd. luck!

 

heh it'll be interesting tryign to figure out where the acura dealer was from... but i'll definitely try to follow up as best i can. the other 2 cars I was looking at were also leased cars, but the car service wasn't followed as regularly. It'll probably come down to just taking a look at the cars in person and driving them around.

 

If you call Acura with the VIN they can tell you where the car was originally purchased. There is a decent chance that the previous owner also had it serviced there...

 

that's what i did....i just called a random acura dealer and they told me everything i wanted to know. Also, i found all the goodies that made me believe the car was well taken care of:
- original MSRP sticker
- user manual
- car was taken in for the tranny before it had to be replaced
- no scratches on rims....haha...KEY!!

 

Having yet to actually call up a dealer to see if they have the service schedule for the car, based on the carfax report it seems like the owner followed the 'severe' servicing schedule with the times they brought the car in. Atleast I was able to figure out which dealership the car was bought from in maryland.

 

So, you're saying that the oil was changed at least every 3750 miles or so? If that's the case you know the previous owner was pretty attentive with the car. If it looks clean and drives well these are good signs...

 

If the oil has been changed every 3750 miles the owner is OVER attentive, that's 2x as often as necessary.

 

heh yea, gonna go take a look at the car tomorrow morning. hopefully there's nothing wrong with it.

 

our car has stock tweeters?? I didn't know that, I got tweeters installed, ( i have them mounted inside the door panel in front of the front speakers) ( I didn't want to make any holes in the precious tl )

but i never knew this.

 

No the Tl doesnt have Tweeters. The CL had them, but not the TL