found this car on craigslist its a 2010 acura tl sh awd 6 spd, /posted in Washington , going to look at it on Wednesday just wondering what you all thought , http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/n...004706613.html , thanks Dan , owner said he purchased car in 2012 from Maryland

 

anyone ,any thoughts ?

 

i would stay away, its got a replaced motor..

it is 2 owner car..

unless the motor was replaced by acura themselves i wouldnt do it..

also his price is very high for what the milage is on the car.. id say wait for another one to pop up on the market.

 

Don't recognize the car but it appears there's a lot of orange peel on the paint?

 

car was forsure resprayed

 

i wouldnt be scared of a swapped car, but the price they want for that swapped car is too fuckin high.
thats what's scary about it.
they want as much as a non-swapped car...get the fuck outta here.


if one isnt scared of a swapped car, and can get the price down to where you are absolutely stealing the car...it would be a fun project.
if one is looking for a daily, one should look elsewhere

 

That trunk is definitely not original. See how the "Acura" and "TL" emblems are down on the bottom of the trunk? That's not how it comes from the factory. He does say he "serviced the rear end?" Whatever that means. It should look like this.

 

I'm guessing servicing the rear end he means he did the rear differential fluid for AWD?

 

Also I don't buy his reasoning for replacing the motor. Makes no sense whatsoever.

If Acura messed up on the valve adjustment, he just takes it in and they do it again. If they can't do it again, they replace the engine on their dime, not his.

It's not really something that a trained technician should be screwing up. Even if so, that would mean the valves are out only a wee bit.

The seller seems like he's hiding something.

 

Definitely had paint work
Definitely sketchy
Definitely stay away

Buy mine instead

 

That car has seen some battles. Mileage vs price is crazy. But because those panels have been sprayed I'd say no. And how can Acura mess up your engine and you don't hold them accountable and just buy another. Lol

 

every word on his cragslist ad is sketchy.

 

To put it in perspective, I just got one ('10 sh-awd, m/t) for not much more and exactly what fair purchase KBB retail was from a dealer a few weeks ago. Add tax and doc fees, but it was 69k miles on body and engine, no accidents, and none of the other stories this person has. The one posted has some nice additions but a checkered past IMO.

It may be worth additional inquiries and a check on the engine VIN. Title says "clean" but I don't know what impact an engine swap has. It may offer some leverage to do some aggressive negotiation.

 

thank you all for your help ,Dan

 

Genuine question here, but why does a car being 2 owner make it bad? What if the first owner was an idiot and the second owner took better care of it because that was a lot of money to the second owner vs the first owner and therefore he's more careful towards it?

There was a story a little while back on here about someones boss who drives a C63 and puts regular gas in it. Wouldn't you expect the first owner (who's probably rich) to fill the car with premium on a hand built mercedes engine? But that isn't the case always obviously. Now you could say that if you bought it from the first owner, you would have seen that it was being owned by an idiot, but I just don't get why people put a blanket statement on second owners (genuine questions here)

Anytime I post a car for sale (even 10+ year old ones with very high mileage) I get people asking if I am the first owner. When I tell them I am not they don't call anymore even though I took really good care of it and also the previous owner took really good care of it.

 

Like everyone said, being the 2nd owner is not that bad it what he says and he changed the engine. Would you buy this car for the amount he is selling it for? I would not. I brought my car a few months ago and before I brought the one i have,I found one 103,000 on the clock 2010 with rust all over the engine for a great price. The owner told me he had no clue to why the rust was there and the car fax came back clean. Anyone in there right mind wouldn't buy that car who knows what kind of trouble you would run into down the line. It's always better to walk away if you have any doubts when spending that kind of $.

 

I wouldn't pay half what he's asking for that car, that's the most sketchy ad I've ever seen for a TL.

 

My personal opinion and generally speaking - is the idea that the original owner who purchased the car new, likely had more financial resources to keep up with maintenance and upkeep than an 3-4th owner who bought the car for 75% off of the MSRP. Hypothetically speaking, the subject vehicle's service history is consistent, documented and verified. Of course a multiple owned vehicle can be better maintained than a one owner vehicle but just go look in the 3GTL forum for real world scenarios where 2nd, 3rd... owners are cheaping out on basic maintenance. In the end, a cars mechanical health should be far more important than its owner history but I would guess more often than not single owner used vehicles would be better maintained.

 

Engine swap means little to nothing on the title - at least in Virginia.

There's also "title washing" where a vehicle is moved from State_1 to State_2 where it might go from Rebuilt/Salvage to Clean as part of the registration process.

 

I would only question it if the second owner owned the vehicle for a very short period of time. As in, they bought it and realized it was a massive headache or had tons of problems and was trying to quickly unload it.

 

I have a few theories:

1) Flood car requiring swap and body work or major damage from accident. Rear body was totally replaced.
2) Probably never seen an oil change and with the oil consumption problems probably destroyed the engine when limited engine oil available.
3) High ask prob to attempt to recoup money if had a high insurance deductible and pay for replaced motor


Either way, he would not have enough $ to pay me to take the car off his hands let alone the other way around.

 

thank you all for info on TL ,we didn't go look at that car instead we went to Bridgewater acura and test drove two 2013 TL sh awd , one was a manual , we own a 2006 aspec tl 6spd , and wanted to test out the 4th gen ,as a manual type driver I must say I was very impressed with how well the 6spd automatic felt in the 2013 TL , we test drove both very hard and I was surprised how well the automatic pulled through the gears ,that being said I think we will purchase a automatic and there are way more of those for sale then 6spds , again thanks for all the help ,Dan

 

Good luck, Chrissy! Please let us know what you get.

 

I wouldn't buy a pre-facelift 4G TL anyways not I am just kidding lol. I wasn't talking about this car specifically, I was just saying second owner in general.

I can follow that train of thought and logic, but like in the case I mentioned above with that guy who bought a C63 only to put regular in it, its not always the case where the first owner takes care of it. I am not attacking anyone in this thread specifically. Moreso even just making a statement of my own experience with used car buyers who turn their noses up at second owner cars and yet they are looking at a 10+ year old car with 100K miles or more on it..like give me a break. I do agree though that theoretically the first owner would take the best care of it, especially when a car was 60k+ new and is now 6k on the used market.

See, thank you. This logic makes a lot of sense to me rather than turning your nose up just because it is a second owner car.