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New Member - Finally an Acura - Father/Son Matching Type S
Hello!
My Ancient Acura history: in 1996 on my one year anniversary, I convinced my wife we should go for our anniversary dinner in a neighboring city, where a reasonably priced, Legend Coupe was for sale. It was sold by the time I got there, which in hindsight was probably good so that I didn't spend our anniversary test driving and haggling on a car. Even though I'd loved Acura's since they first came out, this was the first time I got close to owning one.
Fast forward 8 years and I can still remember the day I saw my first 2004 TL. A brand new white one sitting in the parking lot as I walked into work. Since I had 3-year-old twins at the time I'd let my car magazine subscriptions drop and had given up hope of anything other than a minivan or SUV so I don't think I'd even seen anything about them, which made seeing it in person all the more memorable because it was gorgeous!
Now, as I, and the kids have aged, I progressed from an SUV to a 2017 Chrysler 300S, but last year my son wanted to buy his first car. He ended up buying a 2007 TL Type S with 283,000 miles on it. I'd seen it advertised a few times when looking but discounted it because of the miles. Then one day we were heading out to look at a few different TLs and that one happened to be the closest one so we looked. To my surprise, it was a very solid car, a few blemishes cosmetically and a couple mechanical things we've worked on but all in all a stunner of a first car. So much so that while working on it, I really fell back in love with Acura's and specifically TLs. I made the mistake of setting up an eBay search notification for manual Type S's and a little over a month ago, one popped up that I bit on. One owner, clean carfax, 124K, needs a clutch, which will be going in next week. The CV axle and jackshaft/intermediate shaft were bad causing a vibration, but other than that and a few fixable paint issues and a small dent, it's very clean inside and out. I'm not totally sure of the plans for this one yet, I will most likely fix the small issues with it, restore it as close to original as possible and then keep it as a "toy".
The freaky thing is, other than the transmission and a couple cosmetic things he's done to his, it's a DEAD RINGER for my son's! So I've joked that Type S's are fairly rare, except in our driveway!
I can't wait to get them both all cleaned up in the spring and get them out to take some pictures together.
Yes, mine is the totally stock one. The only non-stock item is a cold air intake, which I told my son I may trade him for his stock airbox. It was "debadged" which I honestly don't really care for, so I've already got the replacement badges to put back on the trunk. Because the car has a clean history and is clean enough physically, I'm going to go the route of keeping it relatively stock.
Surprisingly, especially for his (with 286k miles now), the interiors are in very nice condition. Neither has a cracked dash or torn seats. I don't have any pictures of his right now but it's really close to the condition of mine. The biggest difference is that my leather, especially the back seat, still has the suppleness of new but his is a little shinier/harder the way older leather gets.
These aren't the best pics and I've already vinyl wrapped the nicked up center console trim and re-cushioned the arm rest, so it looks better but I don't have any new pics.
12-14-2018, 02:40 AM
